Transcripts For CSPAN2 Sen. Mitch McConnell R-KY And Roy Bro

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming out on yet haanother rainy day in kentuckyn 2019. Let me take a moment to ask you to take your time now to check your cell phones and make sure it is turned off. Are you picking me up on this, mike . Well, thank you all for coming out. Go ahead and sit down. You for coming out today to another historic moment in the history of the Mcconnell Center here at the university of louisville. Theres number of distinguished guests in the audience tonight and i decided to handle it this way. If you think i would feel you are distinguished, assume that is the case. I will not call you out. But i do owe an instruction and appreciation for president of the university of louisville for being here with us. [applause] thank you for bringing or dragging yourselves here throughout the rain today. This is and historic moment for the Mcconnell Center. Its one of many in our history and i was thinking about it this week that Marcus Cicero and the great roman statesman, one of the most important in his age for sure and his book on duties because it seems to me if we live in a free society we have duties. One of our duties seems to me to remember to learn from our past and to pass on to the rising generation. Or two authors today have done that with the book that we launch to the world here today. We also have members of our rising generation with us and we have High School Students from all over kentucky hitting here in front of me that had just been over the last week here at the Mcconnell Center sitting at the university of louisville studying the constitution. I would say they couldve been out but it rains every day for crying out loud. Whatever else they couldve done they decided to spend this week studied the foundation of american Constitutional Order hiand its been terrific i shoud say as well. We have two authors who have taken up the task to learn from history and passing it and passing it on to the next generation. Roy purnell is a attorney living in washington dc and has had numerous positions in Public Service and including having beendi assistant chief of staff for our first senator, mcconnell. Hes a scholar in his own right having published numerous academic articles in editing a book on the magna carta and its importance for the rule of law in the last 800 years, its been now. Its been a very big book. Senator mcconnell iser majority leader of the United States and is the longest serving leader of his party in the history of the senate and longest serving senator in kentucky history and certainly one of the most consequential men of our age then cicero was in what you may not know what the students now know because he gave them incredible lesson, history lesson, on the election of Abraham Lincoln that he is a voracious reader, a student really, of American History. You will see that here today. Without further ado let me introduce our two authors today to discuss their book, the United States senate in the commonwealth, roy purnell and mitch mcconnell. [applause] thank you all for greeting us this morning. I was fortunate enough to work with the senator mcconnell for 12 and a a half years frequently people would ask would like to work for him and i would often liken it to taking an advanced graduate seminar in history and history was very much a daytoday operation of his office in the way he ran things. I remember he was fortunate enough to help me step him on a number of overseas trips or travel and we were on a trip to afghanistan which was a long, long flight and i remember a number of senators joined us on this delegation and i was sitting to take interest to what people did during this long stretch of my most of the senators after they finish their briefing materials would not off, take a nap or contribute a magazine for check things out on their phone but i remember senator mcconnell completed his briefing materials reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a James Patterson 700 page book on the life of senator taft of ohio. Remember thinking he likes his history and appreciates it. This book project, of course, is the outgrowth of a number of speeches that the senator gave an colleges and universities and organizations that are kentucky talking about prominent kentucky senators and the positions they held in the upper chamber. Without further ado i hope you might discuss your interest in history and how it develops and how it factors into your daytoday operations as leader. I was lucky to have someone because even though he was from kentucky hadnt instant interest in this whole area of not only kentucky but the u. S. History so we bonded over this and then gary greg suggested we do a series of pieces about kentucky senators who of some consequence and we have a number who are. [laughter] so we did a series of six or seven of those over two or three years and all of that evolved into the book and sos. If we wil read the book i would recommend to look at it two ways. First as roy said the reason i read a lot of history is not because i like it but it helps the things im doing on different basis. Almost everything that folks think is new isnt. There are so many lessons you learned that you can apply to todays challenges. If you buy and read the book i think if youou are really a history junkie you will be interested in learning about john brown and the two breckenridge is but if you are just a little bit interested you could pick out the people youve already heard of [inaudible] and we had a delicate problem but we had the perfect solution so how do you deal with my part of this his im one of the authors. Lamar alexander, good friend of mine, didnt afterward to catch up with the president so thats a way of looking at the book if youre only interested in current events, go to the afterward but if youre really interested in people you probably never heard of who were a big consequence back in their era you got those in there as well. This book project involved and discuss the evolution of Senate Leadership institutions with each chapter discussing a Different Institution and were presented by different kentucky senator and both include formal leaders, normal positions of leadership in the senate by Senate Majority leader pro tem for, majority whip and informal leaders, those who were influential in the Chamber Given their special talents and you at a young age have exposure to one of these informal leaders, very prominent senator John Sherman Cooper who is influential in helping end u. S. Involvement in the vietnam war and promoting civil rights legislation. Can you give some of your impressions or reflections on havingn. Worked for John Sherman Cooper and observing him at a young age. Yeah, i was telling [inaudible] that we were discussing before coming down to start this when you are that age you always looking around for someone to think i like to be like him or her when i grow up and for me there was John Sherman Cooper who i got a chance to intern with him in washington in the summer of 64 when the filibuster was broken on the civil rights bill in 1964. Ive been an intern in the house the year before and was there when Martin Luther king delivered his i have a dream speech. Went back in 65 when my internship with cooper but just got lucky to have it on friday and took me over to the rotunda and watched lbj find the Voting Rights act of 1965. Wow. This was a guy who never held a leadership position in the senate. That, he lost against the republican leader and lost so this is the category were talking about and also deals with senators who are consequential and do not necessarily have an elected ro role, a good example was henry clay. He was a majority of but the position did not come into roughly the world war i time so the position did not exist but clay was by all accounts one of the great pledge satyrs of American History. Jfk was appointed by lbj when theyre both in the senate to a little study group the goal was to come up by most consequential senators in American History andnd clay was one of them along with calhoun and webster. Thats sort of howth we approach things and that is then there are the people who had elected leadership roles. The most prominent democrat berkeley of the democrats for a decade or so and during roosevelt and senator went on board who was the number two democrat, the whip and we use the term whip going back to england. The whips job is to see how everyone will vote and report that to the leader and if anyone whos not properly responding you bore down and try to whip them into line. Nd weve got them all in there. Those who had a leadership position to those who just simply lived because they were extraordinary at the business of communication and compromise which of course clay was especially. You mentioned albert berkeley was majority leaderke 1937 whenn important precedent was set in the senate called the president of a prior recognition and it wason a Building Block a lot of majority leaders formal power and an arcane parliamentary procedure but could you talk about the prior recognition is why its important to the senate and why people should be aware of it . B spirit one real power the majority has that the other 99 dont is [inaudible] all of you remember a decision i made which was extremely controversial during 2016 not to fill the Supreme Court seat in the president ial election when Justice Scalia passed away. Big controversial decision but illustrates that Principle Power of the majority leader decides what you will do. The bill will you take up. What accommodation will you go forward with. That started when the Vice President under roosevelt decided the following, the majority leader would have prior recognition in the first one to be recognized in the minority leader would have the second recognition and so the prior recognition right is what became of power to set the agenda which is the only real power the majority has. After that spring roll. Getting the outcome you want to extremely challenging but at least you can decide what direction it will take before you have a big debate over whether he will get anywhere or not. By cleaning the majority leader, minority leader and what are the different roles in different abilities to influence things . The difference between the offenses or defense of ordinator. Easier to score when you are on offense because you get to call the place. If you are on defense is much harder to score when youre in a reactive mode so what will be supportt or oppose so contraryo what a lot of you may think there are plenty of things we do together. Ma the media being the way it is if you have a bipartisan, vice to make something important it makes no notice at all. Its like dropping a pebble in the ocean. The biggest piece of legislation we have had in the last two years of president obama when i was majority leader of the senate was a bill called 21st century [inaudible] bill with nih funding. You do not know about that its not your fault. T u get the drift. We do a lot together and its significant largely ignored because people see that controversy and people we disagree on. There are plenty of those in no shortage of controversy. But there are opportunities for minority leader, example in 2111, 2012 were you able to step in and pursue keeping us from defaulting on the debt in a number of task measures. N at the enough, if you a lot of members of my party consumed by trying to cut spending and oddly enough the only time we have significantly cut spending in recentt years ws an obama was in the white house and i was minority leader. How did that happen . Well, we raised the debt ceiling and there was republican majority in the house, democratic majority in the senate but in order to pass legislation that we were working on a needed 60 votes. That is how i was empowered. They needed to get 60. We ended up in a grand negotiation over reducing spending and oddly enough i produced a bill to reduce Government Spending for two years in a row for the First Time Since after the korean war barack obama in the white house, republican house. And a democratic senate. The point is i was in a Critical Role as a defense of ordinator with both on our side that empowered me to negotiate with joe biden and did that on vacation. Poor joe had to apologize for it now. [laughter] you mentioned the chapter of the majority whip and it touched on a little bit and i think we have a quote in the book which talks about Everett Durst once said peoples vote is water down like candles promote helicopter where you stuff them in your pocket and send it doesnt work like that and it should take effort. Important effort is important around here. You talk about what its like to be whip andnd to reach out in control and persuade your members . My best story and you know what i will tell but i was whip for four years before i became leader but the previous whip we had a bill that was absolutely critical. It was one we could pass with 50 votes and i was the whip. We had 55 senators and i had to get at least 50 votes. I bargained and negotiated and twisted arms controlled and did everything i could finally got 5050. I recorded to the then majority ohat we will have to have changed to find out where he was but he was in afghanistan. That said, oh. [laughter] i hope i whipped him right. We brought them all way back for afghanistan and i was sweating the whole time hoping the count was 5050 and fortunately, it was. But had it been 5149 we would win anyways the night with a call them all the way back from afghanistan from nothing but the whip job is a challenging job, too. Frequently we run into someone whos recalcitrant and you either bring the leader in or bring the president in or do anything you can to get the outcome you are looking for but that was the most exciting moment of my whip was calling the Vice President home from afghanistan. The working relationship between the majority whip and working leadership is that they have a good leader you face a lot of the initial whip count indicates. Yeah, you need good information. The reason i ask of the whip is i need to know where i am and frequently you need to find that out before you make the decision about what you will do. Or what the outcome will be. Yet, you need to have a seamless relationship with whoevers number two and ive been lucky in that regard. [inaudible] john cornyn and now john soon, ive been in the shop while sub had several different whip and have all done a good job. We have a a chapter that tals about being Party Campaign chairman and this is sort of not a position to get as much minority leader and is an unofficial you are chairman of the replicant Senatorial Committee for a few cycles and took an interest in the work of those folks who succeeded you ever since. Can you talk about what its like to be the Party Campaign tear and what the job entails and sometimes why would be desirable for someone to seek deposition . Yeah, several majority leaders have had that job. You end up developing some gratitude from those who win because its a very timeconsuming job. A lot of fundraising involved in candidate recruitment and majority leaders involved in all of that too but the point person who does a lot of the work is the campaign trail and i did it a couple years and bill crisp, my predecessor did it with the George Mitchell who left the democrats during part of my tenure also has the job so sometimes the way you can pick up shifts if you have further ambitions to move up in the latter is very timeconsuming and we dont allow anybody to have it when theyre up themselves so its an important part of trying to win elections. Id like to remind people that only the winners make policy, the losers dont. If you dont win the election you know position to influence it in your direction whatsoever. How does it work . To each party have their own kb committee in the senate and replicated in the house with both parties having their own Campaign Chairman but how does it work if you chairman of Campaign Committee how to interact visavis individual campaigns . Do they often take your advice, sometimes or is ite a depends so how does the interaction go with individual campaigns . The candidates are usually pretty dependent on the senate for committee. To give you a sense of we have our own building with the staff there 50, 60 is a regular Party Operation with Republican National committee and republican Senatorial Committee and republican congressional committee. Democrats have the same and in the senate on our side the head of the Senate Committee is a elected position so beginning in every congress we elect the leadership and the leader in the whip have a policy chair or conference and the head of the Senatorial Committee that is five or six elected by the conference. We do a lot of events in our building and the democrats do too. Its cheaper than going out to some restaurant but its like running a twoyear campaign fory a whole lot of people so its extremely timeconsuming job in the current chairman is our friend from indiana and the cycle we are in right now. We have a chapter about john congressman within a Committee Chairman in thehe early first hf of the 19th century and you served as Mcconnell Center<\/a> here at the university of louisville. Theres number of distinguished guests in the audience tonight and i decided to handle it this way. If you think i would feel you are distinguished, assume that is the case. I will not call you out. But i do owe an instruction and appreciation for president of the university of louisville for being here with us. [applause] thank you for bringing or dragging yourselves here throughout the rain today. This is and historic moment for the Mcconnell Center<\/a>. Its one of many in our history and i was thinking about it this week that Marcus Cicero<\/a> and the great roman statesman, one of the most important in his age for sure and his book on duties because it seems to me if we live in a free society we have duties. One of our duties seems to me to remember to learn from our past and to pass on to the rising generation. Or two authors today have done that with the book that we launch to the world here today. We also have members of our rising generation with us and we have High School Students<\/a> from all over kentucky hitting here in front of me that had just been over the last week here at the Mcconnell Center<\/a> sitting at the university of louisville studying the constitution. I would say they couldve been out but it rains every day for crying out loud. Whatever else they couldve done they decided to spend this week studied the foundation of american Constitutional Order<\/a> hiand its been terrific i shoud say as well. We have two authors who have taken up the task to learn from history and passing it and passing it on to the next generation. Roy purnell is a attorney living in washington dc and has had numerous positions in Public Service<\/a> and including having beendi assistant chief of staff for our first senator, mcconnell. Hes a scholar in his own right having published numerous academic articles in editing a book on the magna carta and its importance for the rule of law in the last 800 years, its been now. Its been a very big book. Senator mcconnell iser majority leader of the United States<\/a> and is the longest serving leader of his party in the history of the senate and longest serving senator in kentucky history and certainly one of the most consequential men of our age then cicero was in what you may not know what the students now know because he gave them incredible lesson, history lesson, on the election of Abraham Lincoln<\/a> that he is a voracious reader, a student really, of American History<\/a>. You will see that here today. Without further ado let me introduce our two authors today to discuss their book, the United States<\/a> senate in the commonwealth, roy purnell and mitch mcconnell. [applause] thank you all for greeting us this morning. I was fortunate enough to work with the senator mcconnell for 12 and a a half years frequently people would ask would like to work for him and i would often liken it to taking an advanced graduate seminar in history and history was very much a daytoday operation of his office in the way he ran things. I remember he was fortunate enough to help me step him on a number of overseas trips or travel and we were on a trip to afghanistan which was a long, long flight and i remember a number of senators joined us on this delegation and i was sitting to take interest to what people did during this long stretch of my most of the senators after they finish their briefing materials would not off, take a nap or contribute a magazine for check things out on their phone but i remember senator mcconnell completed his briefing materials reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a James Patterson<\/a> 700 page book on the life of senator taft of ohio. Remember thinking he likes his history and appreciates it. This book project, of course, is the outgrowth of a number of speeches that the senator gave an colleges and universities and organizations that are kentucky talking about prominent kentucky senators and the positions they held in the upper chamber. Without further ado i hope you might discuss your interest in history and how it develops and how it factors into your daytoday operations as leader. I was lucky to have someone because even though he was from kentucky hadnt instant interest in this whole area of not only kentucky but the u. S. History so we bonded over this and then gary greg suggested we do a series of pieces about kentucky senators who of some consequence and we have a number who are. [laughter] so we did a series of six or seven of those over two or three years and all of that evolved into the book and sos. If we wil read the book i would recommend to look at it two ways. First as roy said the reason i read a lot of history is not because i like it but it helps the things im doing on different basis. Almost everything that folks think is new isnt. There are so many lessons you learned that you can apply to todays challenges. If you buy and read the book i think if youou are really a history junkie you will be interested in learning about john brown and the two breckenridge is but if you are just a little bit interested you could pick out the people youve already heard of [inaudible] and we had a delicate problem but we had the perfect solution so how do you deal with my part of this his im one of the authors. Lamar alexander, good friend of mine, didnt afterward to catch up with the president so thats a way of looking at the book if youre only interested in current events, go to the afterward but if youre really interested in people you probably never heard of who were a big consequence back in their era you got those in there as well. This book project involved and discuss the evolution of Senate Leadership<\/a> institutions with each chapter discussing a Different Institution<\/a> and were presented by different kentucky senator and both include formal leaders, normal positions of leadership in the senate by Senate Majority<\/a> leader pro tem for, majority whip and informal leaders, those who were influential in the Chamber Given<\/a> their special talents and you at a young age have exposure to one of these informal leaders, very prominent senator John Sherman Cooper<\/a> who is influential in helping end u. S. Involvement in the vietnam war and promoting civil rights legislation. Can you give some of your impressions or reflections on havingn. Worked for John Sherman Cooper<\/a> and observing him at a young age. Yeah, i was telling [inaudible] that we were discussing before coming down to start this when you are that age you always looking around for someone to think i like to be like him or her when i grow up and for me there was John Sherman Cooper<\/a> who i got a chance to intern with him in washington in the summer of 64 when the filibuster was broken on the civil rights bill in 1964. Ive been an intern in the house the year before and was there when Martin Luther<\/a> king delivered his i have a dream speech. Went back in 65 when my internship with cooper but just got lucky to have it on friday and took me over to the rotunda and watched lbj find the Voting Rights<\/a> act of 1965. Wow. This was a guy who never held a leadership position in the senate. That, he lost against the republican leader and lost so this is the category were talking about and also deals with senators who are consequential and do not necessarily have an elected ro role, a good example was henry clay. He was a majority of but the position did not come into roughly the world war i time so the position did not exist but clay was by all accounts one of the great pledge satyrs of American History<\/a>. Jfk was appointed by lbj when theyre both in the senate to a little study group the goal was to come up by most consequential senators in American History<\/a> andnd clay was one of them along with calhoun and webster. Thats sort of howth we approach things and that is then there are the people who had elected leadership roles. The most prominent democrat berkeley of the democrats for a decade or so and during roosevelt and senator went on board who was the number two democrat, the whip and we use the term whip going back to england. The whips job is to see how everyone will vote and report that to the leader and if anyone whos not properly responding you bore down and try to whip them into line. Nd weve got them all in there. Those who had a leadership position to those who just simply lived because they were extraordinary at the business of communication and compromise which of course clay was especially. You mentioned albert berkeley was majority leaderke 1937 whenn important precedent was set in the senate called the president of a prior recognition and it wason a Building Block<\/a> a lot of majority leaders formal power and an arcane parliamentary procedure but could you talk about the prior recognition is why its important to the senate and why people should be aware of it . B spirit one real power the majority has that the other 99 dont is [inaudible] all of you remember a decision i made which was extremely controversial during 2016 not to fill the Supreme Court<\/a> seat in the president ial election when Justice Scalia<\/a> passed away. Big controversial decision but illustrates that Principle Power<\/a> of the majority leader decides what you will do. The bill will you take up. What accommodation will you go forward with. That started when the Vice President<\/a> under roosevelt decided the following, the majority leader would have prior recognition in the first one to be recognized in the minority leader would have the second recognition and so the prior recognition right is what became of power to set the agenda which is the only real power the majority has. After that spring roll. Getting the outcome you want to extremely challenging but at least you can decide what direction it will take before you have a big debate over whether he will get anywhere or not. By cleaning the majority leader, minority leader and what are the different roles in different abilities to influence things . The difference between the offenses or defense of ordinator. Easier to score when you are on offense because you get to call the place. If you are on defense is much harder to score when youre in a reactive mode so what will be supportt or oppose so contraryo what a lot of you may think there are plenty of things we do together. Ma the media being the way it is if you have a bipartisan, vice to make something important it makes no notice at all. Its like dropping a pebble in the ocean. The biggest piece of legislation we have had in the last two years of president obama when i was majority leader of the senate was a bill called 21st century [inaudible] bill with nih funding. You do not know about that its not your fault. T u get the drift. We do a lot together and its significant largely ignored because people see that controversy and people we disagree on. There are plenty of those in no shortage of controversy. But there are opportunities for minority leader, example in 2111, 2012 were you able to step in and pursue keeping us from defaulting on the debt in a number of task measures. N at the enough, if you a lot of members of my party consumed by trying to cut spending and oddly enough the only time we have significantly cut spending in recentt years ws an obama was in the white house and i was minority leader. How did that happen . Well, we raised the debt ceiling and there was republican majority in the house, democratic majority in the senate but in order to pass legislation that we were working on a needed 60 votes. That is how i was empowered. They needed to get 60. We ended up in a grand negotiation over reducing spending and oddly enough i produced a bill to reduce Government Spending<\/a> for two years in a row for the First Time Since<\/a> after the korean war barack obama in the white house, republican house. And a democratic senate. The point is i was in a Critical Role<\/a> as a defense of ordinator with both on our side that empowered me to negotiate with joe biden and did that on vacation. Poor joe had to apologize for it now. [laughter] you mentioned the chapter of the majority whip and it touched on a little bit and i think we have a quote in the book which talks about Everett Durst<\/a> once said peoples vote is water down like candles promote helicopter where you stuff them in your pocket and send it doesnt work like that and it should take effort. Important effort is important around here. You talk about what its like to be whip andnd to reach out in control and persuade your members . My best story and you know what i will tell but i was whip for four years before i became leader but the previous whip we had a bill that was absolutely critical. It was one we could pass with 50 votes and i was the whip. We had 55 senators and i had to get at least 50 votes. I bargained and negotiated and twisted arms controlled and did everything i could finally got 5050. I recorded to the then majority ohat we will have to have changed to find out where he was but he was in afghanistan. That said, oh. [laughter] i hope i whipped him right. We brought them all way back for afghanistan and i was sweating the whole time hoping the count was 5050 and fortunately, it was. But had it been 5149 we would win anyways the night with a call them all the way back from afghanistan from nothing but the whip job is a challenging job, too. Frequently we run into someone whos recalcitrant and you either bring the leader in or bring the president in or do anything you can to get the outcome you are looking for but that was the most exciting moment of my whip was calling the Vice President<\/a> home from afghanistan. The working relationship between the majority whip and working leadership is that they have a good leader you face a lot of the initial whip count indicates. Yeah, you need good information. The reason i ask of the whip is i need to know where i am and frequently you need to find that out before you make the decision about what you will do. Or what the outcome will be. Yet, you need to have a seamless relationship with whoevers number two and ive been lucky in that regard. [inaudible] john cornyn and now john soon, ive been in the shop while sub had several different whip and have all done a good job. We have a a chapter that tals about being Party Campaign<\/a> chairman and this is sort of not a position to get as much minority leader and is an unofficial you are chairman of the replicant Senatorial Committee<\/a> for a few cycles and took an interest in the work of those folks who succeeded you ever since. Can you talk about what its like to be the Party Campaign<\/a> tear and what the job entails and sometimes why would be desirable for someone to seek deposition . Yeah, several majority leaders have had that job. You end up developing some gratitude from those who win because its a very timeconsuming job. A lot of fundraising involved in candidate recruitment and majority leaders involved in all of that too but the point person who does a lot of the work is the campaign trail and i did it a couple years and bill crisp, my predecessor did it with the George Mitchell<\/a> who left the democrats during part of my tenure also has the job so sometimes the way you can pick up shifts if you have further ambitions to move up in the latter is very timeconsuming and we dont allow anybody to have it when theyre up themselves so its an important part of trying to win elections. Id like to remind people that only the winners make policy, the losers dont. If you dont win the election you know position to influence it in your direction whatsoever. How does it work . To each party have their own kb committee in the senate and replicated in the house with both parties having their own Campaign Chairman<\/a> but how does it work if you chairman of Campaign Committee<\/a> how to interact visavis individual campaigns . Do they often take your advice, sometimes or is ite a depends so how does the interaction go with individual campaigns . The candidates are usually pretty dependent on the senate for committee. To give you a sense of we have our own building with the staff there 50, 60 is a regular Party Operation<\/a> with Republican National<\/a> committee and republican Senatorial Committee<\/a> and republican congressional committee. Democrats have the same and in the senate on our side the head of the Senate Committee<\/a> is a elected position so beginning in every congress we elect the leadership and the leader in the whip have a policy chair or conference and the head of the Senatorial Committee<\/a> that is five or six elected by the conference. We do a lot of events in our building and the democrats do too. Its cheaper than going out to some restaurant but its like running a twoyear campaign fory a whole lot of people so its extremely timeconsuming job in the current chairman is our friend from indiana and the cycle we are in right now. We have a chapter about john congressman within a Committee Chairman<\/a> in thehe early first hf of the 19th century and you served as Committee Chairman<\/a>, subCommittee Chairman<\/a> and majority leader and can you talk more about the importance of the finite amount of floor time that is and how you interact with chairman as to how you allocate or aforetime what makes a chairman persuasive when they come up to you and say i like to have my bill and the nominations come to the floor . Ut congressman was always overshadowed by [inaudible] and when clay passed away in 1852 came into his own and became more prominent. He tried very hard to keep kentucky in the union and that worked so Committee Chairmen<\/a> are always pulling on your sleeve to bring up my bill but the coin of the realm of the senate is for time because its very difficult to do things in the senate because of our rules. Every senator can create a problem. Many do. [laughter] if you ever watch cspan2, usually its me for not always me, were asking for unanimous consent to do something. Unanimous consent means unanimous consent. If anybody objects you cant do it. So, youre always shopping for unanimous consent. Lets assume one of these Committee Chairman<\/a>s has a bill and comes outse a committee and says lets do it. My first question is can it pass on a voice vote. We will hotline it to see if anyone has objections. The democrats do the same thing. If no one has objections, unanimous consent, past. If we cant clear it i would say to the Committee Chairman<\/a> can you get consent to have this handled in an afternoon with two pending amendments or whatever the objection person is can you satisfy them consent agreement that gives them a chance for their amendment but so the bill does not eat up a lot of floor time so they go scurrying around to see if they can get agreement because ive already told them i will not spend a week on this bill. You got to go work here to see if you can get enough agreement to where we can do it in a reasonable timeframe. Other bills are much bigger and as you know they have to pass but you do have problems getting them past. Theres another device called filling up the tree. Thats when the majority leader calls up the bill, offers a series of things that make it impossible to amend. This is generally not popular. Then we file culture. Culture is the device by which you move to complete something. Culture on a nomination requires a simple majority but cloture on the bill requires 60. So, a bill that would be, in this category, we would need bipartisan board but you have the overshoot measure. You want to shut them out because you dont want to go on the bill andf spend two weeks on it. So, theres a lot of different categories but this is, believe it or not, responding to the question about Committee Chairman<\/a> and they become experts in certain areas when they develop a bill they like to have time to passage. Makes sense. My question is how hard will it be to pass it and then we go through these spaces. In the book weit talk a litte bit about caucus chairman which began in the 19th century and evolved over time when the parties would elect someone to preside over a gathering of their fellow members and a number of kentuckians served in that role in the 19th century john w stephenson, james bakke, Joseph Blackburn<\/a> andh in this position of party caucus chairman evolved into the position you hold today as majority leader. And former carcass, the summary of your numbers and usually a couple times a week, you have a lunch with your membership, can you talk a bit about the importance of these lunches and what you try to achieve during them . You just have your people. I dont know how i never served in the house and i dont know how in the world they make a deal with that man you that man. On our side, the democrats dont know if if they can do what we do that all three of them are pretty low. So if you are selling and that is what i am doing every week trying to sell something. I had an opportunity to deal with all of them almost all three days a week which really helps a. So, over in the house, so many people end up performing the caucuses, theres this one and that one. Its almost nonexistent because theres not that many people to deal with. So i find those helpful. I believe the democrats have to, tuesday and thursday. We have three in a row every week and i find it absolutely essential to so what im trying to sell and every week im trying to sell something. Thats what thats for. When you make a presentation about the advisability of a certain course of action, do members often make clear what they are going to say ory is it silence . How do you gauge that . They are rarely silent. [laughter] imagine, think about this for a minute you have a bunch of class president s theyve all got pretty big egos, pretty smart or they wouldnt have made it that far in the first place. And on any given day they think they can do this job better than me. So, i think its important to be a good listener and we have plenty of people that have avsomething to say and those discussions get aired out during those meetings. Also we have somebody come up to talk to us about youve been watching the situation. We had a state Department Person<\/a> come up this week and talk about the Current Issue<\/a> of the day, so we frequently do that sort of thing. Technically the republicans call themselves a conference on the caucus, that everybody uses the term to define the members of your party in the senate or the house. Can you talk a little because the majority leader how you would compare your situation in a way that you were able to meet institutionally versus as the speaker are the differences in the house leadership where the essentialldid thehousehouse is y its more like a triangle and the speaker is at the top of it and the rules Committee Chair<\/a> does whatever the speaker says. In order to get a bill on the floor of the house you have to go to the committee that determines whether it is commendable or not and may even pick the amendment to throw out. So the house is pretty much a topdown operation. The senate is more like a level Playing Field<\/a> and the majority leader has more clout to take what youre going to take up. But every senator has a lotot me ability to influence the process for better or worse than an individual house member. And if you think o that 435 peoe they function to have some kind of structure that shuts people out so theres a lot of people particularly in the minority of the house. Its hard to have much of an impact. In the senate you can have an impact by simply saying i object. Theres a number of people who do that and then i have to deal with it every single week. Something about saying i object ask themselves a part of the conversation for better or wor worse. When you hav you have a member t stands up and reject something you are trying to work on, how do you approach him and does it depend on context or do you go to them directly first, will you have a thirdparty or just think over time they come around given the Popular Support<\/a> isop on the side of what youre advocating in terms of context . It depends on th depend on td the person. If its really important i might say we need to call so and so. It depends on who it is and what the issue is and who might have the most influence. It really varies but there are some people who are more into objecting then others. In other words, it isnt all that unusual that it happens the. Happens. Att the beginning you started out as the majority leader when do you sort of start planning what youre going to try to do right after when you have a send of what its going to be and then do you put together a plan to understand things change or what is your Decision Making<\/a> and how does it again . It depends on who wins the election. I could relate to you how i begin to plan the previous congress. 1 30 in the morning donald trump got elected president of the United States<\/a>. The first thing i thought is it doesnt happen that often. You go back and republicans only have the house and senate for 20 of the 100 years. And i said to myself this probably wont last long and you will notice two years later the democrats got the house back. So we better not waste any more time. So i began to think about the most important thing the Supreme Court<\/a> was at the top of the list, circuit courts also close to the top of the list, but a couple of other things like comprehensive tax reform. Our view was th is the Previous Administration<\/a> overregulated the economy and we wanted to do something to begin to move thata different direction. Whether it was the Supreme Court<\/a> justices or the comprehensive tax reform or deregulation if you are like me and wanted the country right of center it was the best few years ive been there soo i thought we took maximum advantage and sure enough, it didnt last very long. Remember obama lost the house after two years and trump lost the house, so it is fairly common to be suffering from some sort of buyers remorse and lets try something different. So what happened is we divided the government again. Can you talk a little about the leadership in the senate and the house, can you talk about how the senate is playing its role within the constitutional structure and how it operates and how it should operate . Do you have sort of a difference for the house and where the house operates with respect to the presidency . Its really different, and its even more different than it was with each party. So, to go back to my earlier point, it determines what the agenda is. Going into this congress, i knew going in that there were not going to i be any consequential pieces of legislation either w way. Stuff the they put passport and passed the senate on the stuff they would pass we went and comes with a question to ask when the American People<\/a> elected us what are they expecting. Heres what i think they are expecting. We know you have big differences. Why dont you look for the things you could agree on and do those. I think we did a good job of that during the obama years. It isnt clear how broad the area is that we are going to be able to reach in the current configuration. There are two big things we really need to do. Pass the usmexico canada trade agreement, and reach an agreement on how much we are going to spend over the next two years. Weve had a couple of meetings even this past week with the secretary whose representative in administration for the speaker, myself, mccarthy and the minority leaders about trying to reach an agreement for the next few years. Basic word. After that, i am just not sure yet how much we are going to be able to do. The speaker has a lot of challenges. Shes got a very significant number of members reminiscent of the Freedom Caucus<\/a> when speaker ryan was in the majority with a totally different view about how to go forward and h who seem toe to be suffering. O we are not going to do anything with that kind of mentality, so a lot of things to balance including those who are beating the drums for impeachment which isnt a smart thing for them to do because the American People<\/a> who even those who were not fans of the president understand the normal way to deal with that is an election and we have one of those next year. So shes got her hands full dealing with her own group. Fortunately, for us we are in the personnel business and the house is not. I have plenty to do confirming judges and people, the boards, commissions. There are 1200 executive branch appointments that come to us for confirmation. Its been a little bit harder to pull that off the last 12 years, but its not like we have to have a vote on every single one of them normally. But we can stay busy so ive got things to do even if we dont end up having a lot of bipartisan agreement on legislation. One final question if i could and this is a question we were asked yesterday what is your sense of the high degree of partisanship people seem to believe it is the highest level to have had. A can you talk about that and address that in the final question . Everybody should relax. This isnt the most contentious time in American History<\/a>. Anything you might have heard us say about each other even in campaigns paled in comparison to what jefferson and hamilton said about each other. We havent a single instance where a congressman came over and almost beat to death a senator from massachusetts on the floor of the senate. We have had robust political debate and occasionally physical violence since the beginning of the country. So, l everybody that looks at te situation today says this is going to be worse than ever. Its not. But it is different 24 Hour Television<\/a> and the internet and a number of people who are acting out with their twitter account, not to mention the 65 billion followers. Everybody is more involved than they typically are. Its like a perpetual campaign. I do worry about and we are on a College Campus<\/a> and i hope this isnt the case here, i do worry about the unwillingness to listen to things i dont agree with which i think is complete nonsense College Campus<\/a>es have always been liberal and always a place for debate. But the notion that i have to have a crying as if i have somebody coming on campus but id Say Something<\/a> i disagree with is and whats going on all over america. I dont see it here. But i do worry if you dont want to listen to another plaintiff view that is a dangerous place to be. When i was in school a long tims ago, one year we had a very goldwater and the Bernie Sanders<\/a> of that issue a socialist probably. I dont render anybody saying i dont want to listen. Thats the only thing going on in america right now that i find troubling. The rest believe me nobody should like the country is in trouble. America is going to be just fine. Thank you, everyone. [applause] im going to ask representative mcconnell to make their way to the archives which is just up to the left. Thank you again for coming out i know it was a sacrifice and i appreciate you being here. Thank you. [applause] good evening, everybody. My name is katie and i am part of the event staff at politics and","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia801002.us.archive.org\/19\/items\/CSPAN2_20190827_003100_Sen._Mitch_McConnell_R-KY_and_Roy_Brownell_The_US_Senate_and_the...\/CSPAN2_20190827_003100_Sen._Mitch_McConnell_R-KY_and_Roy_Brownell_The_US_Senate_and_the....thumbs\/CSPAN2_20190827_003100_Sen._Mitch_McConnell_R-KY_and_Roy_Brownell_The_US_Senate_and_the..._000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240716T12:35:10+00:00"}