Transcripts For CSPAN Biden 20240703 : vimarsana.com

Video app during their remarks. This is about two hours. All right. Welcome back, everyone. If youre coming in, grab a seat because youre not going to want to miss this. I think everyone in this room you probably have friends who dont know so tell them to make sure they know about our [indiscernible] im pleased to announce the first details of our upcoming a. I. Plus summit. So last year we did two summits. One in june in washington, d. C. , here in this building, and one in San Francisco. And this year were going to do one, the first will be june 5 in new york. And then well be back in San Francisco on december 17. The reason these events matter, axios events are the ways that we continue our conversations with you, our audience, and news makers. It really does complement what were able to do each day. One of the things that i like is youre able to start a broad conversation, talk about the way things are going but then check back. Our next speaker wanted to come back to talk about how things are going. You may have seen him in the news for nona. I. Related issues. Please welcome Homeland Security secretarial han tkroe mayorkas secretary alejandro mayorkas. [applause] i caught that last quip. [laughter] so when weve talked a few times now about a. I. , but before this was all kind of theoretical, this week you announced pilot projects. Talk a little bit about why these projects what do you hope they prove, why did you start where youre starting . So the three pilot projects that we have commenced, the use of a. I. To assist in criminal investigations, to assist in the training of our refugee and asylum officers, and to assist local communities in developing mitigation plans with respect to natural disasters, were seeking to demonstrate how a. I. Can advance our mission and not just incrementally, but significantly. And depending on the outcome of these pilots, it will shape and educate us about how we can employ a. I. In a number of our domains. And one of the issues is figuring out, is the technology ready, is it private, is it secure . The other is having the talent to create it. I think tech workers are looking for jobs, so you might be doing ok. We have gotten 2000 responses, applications for positions for technology experts. One of the issues, you speak to this. One of the issues that you discussed at that engagement with people was, how do we close the divide, the financial divide , between what an individual, what an expert can achieve versus what one can earn with the government . The conversation with the government is very different than financial. There is the stability of earning with government, but im not exactly sure how one would monetarily quantify a sense of fulfillment. And impact peoples lives in a significant way. Lets say that things go really well, paint a picture of what your department could be doing better and differently a few years from now if it can really harness the power of the ai . Let me give you any example. We are using generative ai to simulate an interview of a refugee or asylum applicant. The reallife person will review the reallife officer and use generative ai to play the role of an applicant. We have trained that machine to simulate how an actual applicant response to questions to disclose private information, difficulty in disclosing experiences that are traumatic. I observed the demonstration. It is breathtaking. The machine has been trained by our officers, and their experience. We have that. We have it and will develop capabilities beyond the three pilots. We are using Artificial Intelligence at our border in our nonintrusive Inspection Technology to detect anomalies in commercial trucks and Passenger Vehicles to detect if an individual is being smuggled, if manufactured fentanyl is being smuggled. The domain is quite vast and diverse. We could not use ai if in fact we learn to use it responsibly, we understand what the implications are, civil rights liberties perspectives, and that is the key to what we are trying to do. Use it responsibly understanding its risks. Two of the things that i foresee, how do investigations modernize . We saw after 9 11, from a technology perspective, from what i recall, you could not search for two keywords. I understand theres a lot of possibility for how ai can monitor more, can draw connections that a human might miss. What is your biggest worry . How do you see it going wrong and making sure that you correct for that . The worst Case Scenario . Not the bad guy. Let me give you an example of connectivity. One of the other pilots is Homeland Security investigations, criminal Investigative Agency within immigration and customs enforcement. They investigate property theft, human smuggling, online child exploitation. There investigative reports are not collected in a database. Therefore one has an Investigative Team that has there investigative reports in los angeles, california. There is another Investigative Team investigating a different crime, presumably different people across the country, in new york or across the world in austria. All of those investigative reports in a data set, and all of a sudden what we think are separate and distinct organizations have a connectivity, because we can draw that linkage. That is incredibly powerful. What worries me about ai is it is adversarial use. Its potential for harm. That is one element. The other element is the fact that someone who seeks to do harm can use Artificial Intelligence and generative ai specifically to advance their nefarious mission. Are you seeing deliberate misinformation . The threat is a problem if you are surfing the web but also a pretty big problem for intelligence that is 99 ai nonsense. Some disinformation. Everyone is aware of the phenomenon of data poisoning where one seeks to poison the data set upon which the machine relies. We are seeing it in other areas. I think we spoke about this the last time that you and i engaged. The National Center for missing and exploited children. Using generative ai to fabricate images of Children Online and pick them as exploited when they may not be real children, whereas they may be real children and the images fabricated to display and exploitation that did not occur. That sends investigators on an errant mission and pernicious. We talked about the technology. Your job more broadly, technology can help with some of these things. Estimate credibility those credibility determinations to technology . They require judgments, they require the ability to discern facial features and other credibilitys or lack of it. I would be reticent to turn that over to a machine. When you look at your overall job, and you have had a fair bit of criticism i know, i know. What would you do differently at the border if you could change everything . What would you like to see the policy be . Is it a money issue . Is it a policy change . People talk all the time about problems. I am curious, what is a problem and what would your solutions be . The way that you pose the question would call upon me to make some fundamental points. You have to understand that there are more than 80 million displaced people in the world today. What causes individuals to leave their home countries . I would actually frame it more poignantly. What causes a parent, a loving devoted parent, to send a child alone in the hands of the smuggler to traverse multiple countries only to reach the southern border of the United States, which is dangerous terrain . That is a reflection of the human condition and what people in different parts of the world are suffering. That, when you speak of what i would like to see, i would like to see that tackled. Lets talk about the immediate situation at the border. We have a solution at our fingertips. Does it secure all the challenges . Of course not, but a Bipartisan Group of senators reached a very significant compromise. It would advance for the first time in decades. Our work in addressing the regular migration that reaches our borders in a way that we havent since 1996. It would resource our department. We are a preliminarily financially starved department. You have a couple of months of funding so you dont have to close the door. It is a cause for a sign of relief that we make it for another day. We are terribly, terribly underfunded. This gets complicated, but a quick snapshot. When one applies for asylum at our border, one must meet an initial screening threshold of credible fear. It is purposefully low so that we dont errantly send someone back to their place of persecution. It depends on demographics, but generally speaking 75 of the people who claim credible fear meet the initial threshold. The determination is a higher bar, 20 to 25 . That is quite a disparity. The time in between that initial screening is seven plus years. What happens . People are able to work, they get work authorization. Many have u. S. Citizen children. They attend our places of worship, schools, integrate into communities. It becomes difficult 7, 8, 9 years later to go into the community, apprehend a family, and remove them. It explains in part why we have 11. 5 million undocumented people in the United States. The legislation, Bipartisan Legislation would fund us to reduce that time, that seven years, to as little as under 90 days. What happens is attending migrants risk calculation, do i spend my life savings . Do i place my life and the life of my little ones in the hands of smugglers . Only to be returned to my home country within 90 days . The risk calculus changes. It changes the entire dynamic of the regular migration. We have that. We have it. We have the funding. 19 billion. There are 3 million cases approximately in the Immigration Court case backlog. Let of that could use all today through executive action what of that could use all today through executive action . By administrative action we cannot fund our department. That was 19 billion for our department for 100 Immigration Judges for the department of state to work in the International Arena with other countries. Remarkable that something that delivers so much success is being sacrificed so that the problem can be used. Something that you said a moment ago, you mentioned what is actually going through the mind of a family who leaves the country. A lot of members talk about we should make it harder for people to reach our shores. When we talk about a parent sending a child by themselves with the smuggler, we would have to make america a pretty bad place to live for the things that prompted them to do that would keep them from taking that risk . So, the parent calculates relative harms. It is not a question that a parent asks in the abstract. I cannot send my daughter to walk to school because of fear of what she will suffer on that walk. It is in comparison to that that a parent sends a daughter. When we speak of making it more difficult, of course there is the effort to address the root cause of why people make that journey. That is at the root. What we need other countries to do is a regional challenge that requires a regional solution. We need other countries to enforce their laws of humanitarian relief and enforce their enforcement protocols at their respective borders. I would love to talk about this more. I know there is more to talk about now that we have technology and immigration. We hope to catch up at a future event. Me too. Thank you, very much. Next, another view from the top segment with nicholas johnson. Good afternoon. The second half of an excellent afternoon. Thank you for tuning in online. Thanks to our partners who have made today possible and todays conversation. Welcome to whats next. Thank you for being here. What starts a big picture . I want to talk about the history and their view of capitalism and how that fits into the companys aspirations. Im happy to testify, good afternoon, everybody. For those of you who dont know the International Food and beverage foundation, think about our company as a different kind of food and beverage company. I mean it is a company that believes performance and purpose are hardwired codependent. If you think about our company, if you go back in the history of our company, you go back 50 years and one of the founding leaders of our company 50 years ago made quite a foundational speech, at the time a groundbreaking speech, talking about the idea that the company had a dual mission. Economic mission, serious about the business, but equally a societal mission. This dual project was the core of the foundation of the business. I head the foundational belief in the company was important. Our mission is pretty bold, food to as many people as possible. That manifests in the company in two forms. One is what we sell which is fundamentally good food and beverage. Biggest plantbased company in the world, in north america. Big beverage, big coffee, big specialized nutrition business. Equally important how we do it matters to us. We want to of course have a good business, but we want to use our business as a force for good. How we run the business and how that manifests is important to us. Food is governance. That hardwired some really important a point on that. My experience has been relatively small and newer corporations. To hear something as old and as large as yours i think it is putting your money where your mouth is. Literally built as a corporation we have to do it like that . Exactly. 80 of the news and the company globally, including north america. A century of government structure that requires a certain amount of accountability and transparency on our economic and societal measures. It essentially pushes the business to run business the right way. Sort of the ultimate expression of capitalism. You are correct, it is not typically associated with big businesses, but we are big corp. Certified. It has an important impact on our business. Fiscally, drives a certain amount of accountability and transparency in the business. Beyond that it is something that we believe is a competitive advantage. Increasingly with our consumers it is highly, highly relevant. The third part which is under advertised is what it does for our people. A tight labor market, which we are in, with engagement matters. This is a real pride point for our people, a real pride point. The last thing is it is not a static thing because every three years you renew. It pushes the business to evolve and change and be better. One example is methane. We are a big dairy business. Part of that is methane. We have really ambitious targets to be better. We committed to reducing the methane admissions from our dairy supply chain by 30 by 2030. I can tell you that its not easy. We dont know what mechanism we are going to use, but its pushing us to innovate. Innovate at a really fundamental level on the farm. Farm management practices, farmer partnerships, everything down to how we feed cow. We are experiencing with seaweed as a food additive that can fundamentally reduce that is the first time that cows and seaweed has been used in a sentence. We talk about sustainability goals and aspirations. The more that we can bring that into the real world is useful. There is nothing more real than what you feed your cows. There is a number of experiments that weve run as a business to push ourselves to be better. One is Food Additives and how that interacts with our farm supply. We have a partnership with cornell university, which is a storied Academic Institution for research, and we are experimenting. The piece we are pushing more in our business is partnership to go after some of these bigger goals. If you think about our business and how we sell we are fundamentally a partnership business. We sell through retailers. A lot of that is public and private. A few examples. The infant formula crisis in this country, that was the infant formula crisis in the United States, we were proud to partner with the white house for formula and bring in 2 Million Units of infant formula from the European Business into the u. S. We are increasingly pushing our partnership as a model. We were really proud in the last 18 months to partner with the white house on the conference for Hunger Health and nutrition. North of a 20 million pledged to increase research, collect improvement, and as recently as last week yogurt was approved as fundamentally a category that we can claim around positive impact on type 2 diabetes. Increasingly expanding the model of this performance that fundamentally we think of as the future of business. Nutrition. This is an interesting time for this line of work with advances around weight loss. From your vantage point, what is next . It is stunning that it has taken us that long to talk about glp1, but thanks for asking about it. Food and beverages, it is an incredibly dynamic moment. I would say that the way that we think about the future is broadly in two time frames. One is what we call, what are the big macro trends with the consumer today that we can address. Our yogurt business, for example. Gut health, highprotein, low in sugar. You would agree big macro trends in food that we can address. That we can serve through our brains, which is good for society and good for our business. It is no surprise that when we serve those needs business performance. You are looking to wear those two things intersect . Yes. Before we get the hook here, we mentioned backstage at the secret labs around the world to develop cool things. Tele school stuff tell us cool stuff that is coming on the horizon. We do have the labs. We have one in colorado, one in shanghai, one across europe. The research and Development People are incredibly talented. Maybe two that i can let you in on that may be available upstairs for those of you who would like to try it. Back to the notion of trends, snacking. Snacking and food and beverage in the United States for sure is a trend on the move. We have the capability and have launched a range of products that have yogurt and food prepackaged. I ate the entire thing. Not just because you are a sponsor. The coo the cacao and nuts, and you have a snack to go at home or purely on the go. It is harder than you might think from a packaging and food science perspective. Maybe the other one that is clearly a trend in the United States at the moment is coffee. We have a big coffee business. Cold foam is certainly a trend in coffee. What we are seeing with consumers who have that experience at home. We brought a new to the world experience where you can literally, on the top of your coffee, add a cold foam experience which is on hot or cold coffee. It is pretty good. Both of those things i think our upstairs. Dont go up yet, we have more conversations to come. Thank you. Now, it is me, axios one big thing host. Good afternoon area i hope that everyone is having a good time. We have an hour left in our programming today. Im excited that you will be part of axios history with the next conversation. This interview will be our first for my podcast, one big thing. This interview and your applause. I would be remiss if i didnt say please subscribe where ever you get your podcasts. The chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, the senator from west virginia, help me give an enthusiastic welcome for senator joe manchin. [applause] thank you, senator. I didnt know that this is your premier. [laughter] welcome to whats next. We want to talk about whats next in energy, but i want to start with whats next in congress. Youve often taken a position prioritizing bipartisan dealmaking. You said that your plan isnt to run for reelection. I wanted to ask, when we think about mitt romney and kyrsten sinema, all of the people leaving, who is taking up the mantle in your place . There are so much talent on both sides of the aisle. The reason that ive always been bipartisan in my life, i did everything working with people who sometimes agreed and sometimes didnt agree. I was 35 before i got into politics. I never thought that i was always right or you were always wrong. I was looking to make Something Better. Coming here, i thought it is the big leagues. The United States senate. The house of delegates, secretary of state, and governor, now im moving up getting into the big leagues. Then i saw the squabbling going back and forth and everyone trying to identify the other side as the enemy. Ive always tried to Work Together. The filibuster is what makes the country different than any other place in the world. Who else has that attitude that you described . I was entrenched in what i believe so strongly. I am not a party person, ok . If you are democrat or a republican, i looked at you as a person elected to represent the people from your state. That you really want to do good, and if we Work Together we will help each other do better. I wont name names because there are good people that you can probably figure out, they didnt have to take the flak that i was taking. I was the greatest spirit spear catcher for 14 years. I really think that there should be term limits. I believe in term limits. I never did believe in term limits years ago. Southern west virginia, 200 or 300 people in a town hall like this. She says, would you support term limits . I didnt think that that was something that we should do, because we would lose the expertise and people who have knowledge. I went through all of the reasons why you wouldnt have term limits. She said think about it this way. If we had term limits we would get one good term out of you. I swear, i had no comeback. I have been floored ever since. She was correct. One good turn. 18 years for the supreme court. One six year term for president. Two six year terms for the senate. Six two year terms for the house is more than enough. More than enough. I didnt have a sixyear sentence. We have been talking about a movement of voters in the middle who arent feeling heard and satisfied with the choices. Do you see any realistic path to a presidency that doesnt go to joe biden or donald trump . I looked at it so many different ways. It is a very challenging thing. It goes to the house of representatives if it doesnt get to 70. There a lot of things in play. I believe as a country, youre dealing with a duopoly in washington. It is a Business Model. The Business Model is based around division. We want you to pick a side. If i can make the other side an enemy you will get more active, get more money. Billions and billions and more are coming in. They dont want the system to be changed. There is no reason for us to sit down and fix things and Work Together because it doesnt play into the Business Model. I think there needs to be a thirdparty movement to bring people back. 55 to 60 of us would like to see the grand old party be grand again, the Democratic Party to be responsible and compassionate. What would that look like . You said the system is set up for two parties. How does the thirdparty movement get in . Joe biden cannot win unless you pick someone. If you are happy with everything you have and the way people have gone, ive said it before, i love my country too much to support the vote for donald trump. We tried twice to impeach him, and then he got mad. We had a good relationship. I thought the democrats were wrong to impeach him. It was a political trial we didnt have the votes for. His personality, it would give him more gravitas and energy, and it did. Maybe if you send certain censored him we could bring him back more reasonable. Joe biden has gone too far left. What then you work to bring him back. Every time you hear him talk, whether it is energy or the border, whatever it may be. The thing that discourages me is Border Security bill that we had. In september the republicans said we are not going to talk about any aid to ukraine or for taiwan or israel until we secure our border. I agree with my republican friends. Lets secure our border and then we can deal with and we had the ukraine aid. This is ridiculous us not supporting people for what we are willing to die for. Mitch mcconnell, one of the better human beings that we have in the senate. He is very religious and very m oral he has a moral compass. James sometimes cannot get to the final deal because it is not good enough. We had a good piece of legislation. Donald trump said something, not a good bill. We started getting people get wiggly. Id never seen anything like that in my life. These are my friends. One person scare them away from doing whats right. Scared them away from doing whats right. How can they do that . That is why i am looking at term limits now more than before. The one good term they had left is coming to an end, they would have been able to do the right thing more so than thinking about the future, this and that. Honestly, this is not the best job ive ever had. What was . Governor. If you are in Public Service and you can be governor, take it. You get up every morning and you can help someone, you can change someones life. Are you going to run for governor . No, im looking forward to my next life where i can help people not make the same mistakes. The knowledge that i have that i can share that i think will be helpful. Thisll be the first time in 42 years that ive had control of my schedule. For 42 years ive never been able to schedule anything with the kids or even a vacation at times. That his public life. Lets talk about energy. As of today, you were encouraging President Biden in an oped yesterday to celebrate the administrations energy wins. You have been a critic of the Biden Administrations energy policy. If you could narrow those frustrations down to axios length, what is frustrating with the Biden Administration . Implementation of the bill. That bill, i couldnt vote for the bbb bill. That bill, when i didnt vote for it it was killed. Everyone was mad at me. The democrats across the country. Three months later i do this bill. Why did i do this bill and kill that bill . They are different completely. The bipartisan infrastructure bill was pulled out of the bbb because we needed infrastructure. The good, the bad, the ugly into one because that helps them get through. It was too big. Our social, you and i are from the same generation to a certain extent. A couple of years different. I said, ask not what you ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. How much more can my country do for me . I dont believe that, i cant do it. The ukraine war started and russia used energy as a weapon. Who are producing more energy than anyplace in the world. We are Energy Secure. To your point when have you heard the president say that we are Energy Secure . This legislation paid down 200 billion in debt. The first time weve had a piece of legislation where some was dedicated to debt reduction. The energy portion, he had to sign that and knew the frustration i had was implementation. They are trying to implement a bill they didnt pass. When they get out of their lane you try to bring them back in. What do you think about that . What is a Sticking Point . Ev. Do get 3750 if we source and produce Critical Minerals in north america. So that we are not held hostage. China, russia, iran, north korea. Everyone is good with that, they said. 40 , i said i would work with you on credits if you bring manufacturing back to america. Thats all. We had the north American Free trade agreement. Then everything went to hell in a handbasket as far as us being able to assess. What happened was, fine 40 the first year, then 60 , then 80 in our country. Just cut in half, 20 , because they want to get more evs out quicker and we are still supporting china. That is not why we did the bill. Implementation, one last question about that. We talked about energy. What else do you think joe biden needs to be saying right now . He and i have said, like you and i are sitting here, mr. President , i want you to be the person in 2020 that you said you were. You were always in the Center Making a deal. I have worked with you, i knew. All of a sudden there is no deal to be made because you have been pushed to the side. You are playing to basically the same 20 . There is nothing wrong with that but you will have a hard time winning here. That is not where most of us are. We want energy. We want it cleaner. We are producing more energy than anyone in the world, producing oil and gas, more wind and solar. We are basically advancing technology and all of the other technologies we are trying to mature than anywhere in the world. We are doing it all. Take credit for that. Dont build pipelines to safely move product, trains and trucks are more dangerous than pipelines. Say, listen, if you have Something Better tell me and i will try it, but this is the best we can do. I will give you an example. Venezuela was brought back into the market. They produce 80 more pollution when they are producing oil. We are the cleanest production. Them, it is the climate. We knew that the ghost oil ships were coming out of iran. The resources that they get from that, they are wreaking havoc around the world. You want to keep the prices low. We are producing oil in america. They got gas back down. You want evs. We can do it here. Better technology, better working conditions. Im trying to find that balance. That makes sense. You can put a gun to my head and we can play russian roulette with six bullets. We will have to leave it at that, senator. [laughter] that is a helluva wrap, isnt it . One quick question, then. This is just conversations that we were having earlier today. Do you plan to release soon. Im working with my republican friends. When you think the Sticking Point is . Two National Campaigns going on. If that is something they dont like because its not good enough we are trying for more perfect union. We are trying to make a more perfect bill. We have to permit something to get something done. This goes away if we dont get these things matured where they can stand on their own. Its a balance, you know. Then the border has to be taken care of. Ukraine, if it comes to the spring and we havent helped ukraine, god help us. It will be the worst atrocity in history that your grandchildren will read about. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. [applause] introducing our axios pro tech reporter. Hi, everyone. Thank you for being with us this afternoon and sticking around. The next guest will give us a look into how the house is covering a lot of what we have talked about today and how we are legislating the future of the workforce as we know it. The vice chair of the House Republican conference and congressman from utah, congressman blake moore, welcome to axios. It is great to be here. I will get started right away. A bill that could lead to tiktok in the United States. I want to know a little about where you stand on this issue and why you think its important and if you think the senate is going to act. I would articulate it as not a ban but to divest from bytedance. That is the big thing that we had to clarify. We got a lot of calls. You know what . Last week 500 out of committee. Pretty peculiar. If something gets attention it is because its highly political. This one, completely unanimous out of committee. The house, strong bipartisan vote. Just a few on each side. The part that i think is important for people to recognize, i didnt hear it much , think about what the u. S. Did with respect to huawei. While way is chinas infrastructure. They make phones, towers, all of that stuff. A lot of countries around the world use it. They have been successful in permeating a lot of these different markets. The u. S. Categorically rejected it and a lot of other countries, allied countries, to also project while away from infiltrating. An individual who has been intech for a lot of things, this is something that he led. What was our concern . That they were going to be able to access the data, information, the communist party was going to have more information that we wanted them to. It is completely correlated. Its different because it wasnt infrastructure. It was an app. Bytedance was clearly it is in the bylaws and regulations that this type of company can, when the ccp wants to they can access this information. We are trying to divest. More based on that potential for them to be sharing information with the pcp for based on the intel briefings you participated in, have you seen things that have already happened that have brought you concerns about security . I would say that my biggest concern is what could ultimately happen. What has taken place, there have been a few instances, bad press, awareness about it, and there is an effort. The fact that the ccp can enforce bytedance to do it. The deal is narrowly written. This is an app that people love. That advertisers love. I know Many Industries are great if it continues. We just cant have that threat of president xi and the Chinese Communist party saying that we want the information and enforce that to happen. Can you tell us what you heard from the senate side they are going to ask . Predicting with the senate does is above my pay grade. 359 yes votes. A few from each party decided not to support this bipartisan tax bill and they are struggling to get that part finalized. It is tough to predict. I dont think that the arguments that some will make as far as freedom of speech is warranted in this case. A zero vote, a fundamental difference in a body of congress 100 yards from us it goes both ways. You look at it as supplemental, what republicans need to do with respect to senator manchin, it has been one of my big surprises in congress. Im going into my fourth year, my second term. These two bodies of congress operate very differently. I cant predict what they are going to do. Another topic that will need both sides of congress to agree on something is ai. Something on everyones mind in this room. Especially in the last couple of years. The senate has done a lot of ground work on ai. Where do you stand on this issue and what you think the house should do when you see Bipartisan Legislation on ai passing any time in the next few years . I am bullish on ai in general. Im bullish on congress figuring it out at some point. We are going to be behind the curve a little bit. Sometimes thats all right. I remember writing a paper for my Public Policy masters program. At the time there was regulation needed in social media with respect to campaigns and electric vehicles. Should they have the gas tax associated to them or not . For years, way beyond when they should have had these things figured out, when it comes to new Technology Congress is behind. We have to be they are doing a great job with great bipartisan conversations. I went on a bipartisan trip to Great Britain to the deep mind google facility. That was the first time that i actually felt like i had a tiny grasp on what ai could do. They showed how they were mapping it. They werent able to do that before. Now theyre mapping it and able to show where we can create a mutation in what were doing with respect to the structure, not just the content, the makeup. I am bullish on us using it for positive. It will always be there will always be the negative side and using it for things that are nefarious or unhealthy for our society, but congress is taking it serious and we are trying to at least create the discussion around it. Candidly, its all been pretty bipartisan. Do you use any applications in your everyday life . Have you tried anything out that is particularly useful for you . Lets see . Right now the important part is my bracket for march madness. I could help it predict because i am on a dry run. I am a decade from a winning run. I could use help from ai. I dont have anything specific outside of a basic instagram account. I team, my press secretary, i dont have the passwords. We avoid any viral moments. Probably smart. Speaking of being smart about technology, lets talk about the role of technology in childrens lives. Whether it should be up to congress to make rules around that, whether the apps themselves should be setting their own limits, how do you think about this from a policy perspective . I am from utah. Our governor has been on the forefront of driving this a little bit. It gets to the point where we are doing too much, the government is doing too much. You have to put on the brakes. Our children need to be protected. They are having access to stuff too young and they are not ready for it. We are trying to find that sweet spot for freedom of speech, allow the private sector to operate and work on their own without massive government interference. We are seeing the worst of the worst situation with kids. We got calls of potential suicide when they couldnt open their tiktok account. I am really interested in utah taking the lead. We are the youngest state in the nation and we want to make sure that there is accountability, transparency, and clearly these are consumerdriven applications. Social media, even with the negatives that it creates, it has done positive for industry. The kids are going through a lot of Mental Health issues. I have an 11yearold, 8yearold, and 2yearold and you can see how easily they get addicted. And then an ad on application the world is open to. My little boy, he is an amazing kid and basically taught himself to read. My wife and i cant take credit to it. Its largely because he was using these cool programs on his ipad and it has all been positive for the most part. And then you see a switch that doesnt add a lot of intrinsic value, but he is so addicted to it that we have to regulate that. It should be done primarily at the family level, the government does have a role to figure out where we put the brakes on and make sure that these dont run amok because of our kids safety and real Mental Health tragedy. Congress has stalled on the debate of where people do see action potentially happening on the kids privacy. We are going to be tracking that. That is a good point. People are so surprised of the tiktok bill. It had been on the works for a while, but it happened relatively fast. It happened very fast for tech policy. I wanted to we only have a little bit of time left. I wanted to get into something fun. We like to do one fun thing to wrap things up at axios events. You dont get to work on the hill in a car, do you . I ride a vespa. It is nice italian machinery. My buddies call it a scooter, but i have to remind them that this is far more advanced than a scooter. My freshman turn, the joy that it brought to people was that i would we need to do more to bring this place together. Parking is just amazing. Thats great, i love that. I support this lifestyle. With that, we have to wrap it up and thank you for joining us. There it is. [applause] i didnt know you had that. Yes, thank you. Thank you all come appreciate it. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2024] up next, another view from the talk from the top segment. Alright folks, deep breath, we are in the home stretch. A big finish of whats coming up soon. Before that come i want to thank bank of america which has been a partner of axios literally since day one. Theyve been with us since the beginning more than seven years ago and im excited to welcome the managing director of the bank of america. Come on out. [applause] thank you for being here. Its great to be here. Tell me a little bit about what the bank of america does. The bank of America Institute gets to leverage all of the banks data to uncover insight. To just put that in context when we talk about all of the data from a consumer perspective, we are talking about 69 million consumers, business clients, 57 million digital verified users, a lot of fun stuff to be able to investigate. What are the longterm goals of trying to figure out what to do with all that . What we are trying to do, we are intentionally not tied to a particular bank product. What we want to do is uncover insight to share not only with their employees elites they can share them with their clients but also to have a brian broader mandate to share with the public so policymakers, community, individuals so in terms of what our objective is, its not tied to actual products. We dont sally any of the data. We want to make sure that people whether its individuals, companies, policymakers are better informed so they can make better decisions. I think thats simply what it is. What are you on the hunt for . Are there issues or trends you are through to look at . Weve got a lot of things to potentially look at but we really focus on the state of the consumer, the state of Small Businesses but then we can dig into other things like cybersecurity into migration patterns, housing, the world is open. Have you pick and choose . Thats a great question. We figured this out by taking a cue from journalism. We have an Editorial Board that is made up of leaders from our eight lines of business and Senior Management from across the bank. What we do in these Editorial Board meetings is we ask the question what questions are you being asked and what are the issues are people talking about. Ive never been in a real Editorial Board meeting but i understand they are spirited and engaging. What we get to do is we get to take all that in and come back and say what data do we have within the bank that can help us provide context and help us provide insight. What are people interested in. And whats really neat about it is that we can go use that data and we can share it in close to real time. There is a lot of great data that comes out of the government but it doesnt necessarily come out now. If we want to understand whats happening with the consumer right now, or how they responded to Student Loans or having to pay them back, we can tell you that two weeks after a Student Loan Repayment started back in september. You can see the Bank Processing this and watch these massive trends. We can would doing aggregated way but we can identify which households were paying Student Loans before the pandemic, what are they doing now as their spending has increased or decreased. Thats fascinating. There is a couple of pieces you released recently on womens spending patterns, get into that trend. We were talked about the need for paid leave and whatnot. Its a rather depressing statistic from our data. For consumers, bank of america customers, households are making childcare payments. In january, they were paying 32 more than they paid in 2019 on average. Wow. Thats depressing. Why does that matter . Its the impact it has on Labor Force Participation. Female Labor Force Participation is at frankly a longterm high right now in the u. S. But we are number 27 out of 32 of industrialized nations. Thats horrible. We are number two in terms of the cost of childcare behind only new zealand. There are real implications for what that means for closing the gap in getting more women back to the work force. Its a real visceral explanation of what can be a big policy discussion. When you look at air data and we look at the households that are making childcare payments, we are also seeing a much higher rate of paid disruption. That means when you are looking at continuous income from a particular company and you switch and dont have one, there is a much higher rate, maybe three or four times higher for people making childcare payments. Parents with but not only women are not investing in their careers and not getting their promotion and it doesnt set them up for longterm. Bring me some good news. In the next decade, there will be 30 trillion of wealth that gets transferred from traditional to boomers to younger people, younger women. That means women will be controlling more wealth than they ever have before. Lets take a step back on the consumer trends. As you said, we get Government Data two quarters ago so what are you seeing in real time . Two quarters ago what we saw last year is the consumer was resilient, they were spending in every thing is great. In january and february, what we are seeing is consumer card spending up by 0. 4 in february and rebounded from down 0. 3 . It means the characterization for the consumer is softer than it was last year but its still stable. Digging into that a little bit more, one of the trends is lowering lower income households are moderating the growth a lot more than middle and higher income households. This is despite the fact that we are seeing their incomes increase at a higher rate but the money going into their accounts is going up faster than ever but their spending thats something we want to watch. What are the data points you will keep an eye on three months from now . We are in an Election Year so the talk about the economy is one of the most important things. We always look at spending and wage growth and i think wage growth is the most important thing to understand. Are people getting paid more . Do they have jobs and are they working enough . We also look at credit utilization and if you think about with inflation, its coming down but are people turning to the credit cards to fund with they need to . What we see there is no, we are not seeing people using more of their credit. That means they have enough that their wages to live their lives so that would be a positive. I think the characterization is that the consumer is softer than it was but it still stable. The other statistic that i think gets peoples whats not depressing. When you look at checking and savings account balances, today, they are 40 higher than they were before the pandemic. Thats across all income levels. The stories we were hearing over the last year, we read these headlines and weeks ask if this is true. It said the consumer would run out of money and the stimulus had been spent. 40 more money across all income levels than it was before the pandemic. So the consumer is softer and still supported. And stable. Youve got this massive data set, whats the coolest thing you found in this pile of numbers . This is my favorite thing. We saw a headline that the reason labor market was so soft and people were not participating because they were leaving the traditional working dish workplace. We were able to go and look at all of our customers and who was getting income from the gated economy so delivering food or whatever. What we found was yes, there was a tripling in the number of people who are getting gig income but there were not getting it every month. It was just under two times per year people were getting a gig income. If you look at the way that was working when people were doing it, as the labor market started to return and particularly lower income wages went up, all of a sudden, people werent participating in the gig economy anymore. We think that rather than the gig economy being a replacement for traditional jobs, what we are seeing is a supplement for jobs. Anecdotally, we havent been able to find this in the data yet but younger people are saying i dont need to save up to go buy a handbag or go on a trip. They are saying i will go do a couple of bride shares and deliver a couple of food orders and then go back. Thats interesting and thank you for being here. Thank you for it to bank of america for making this possible today. [applause] put your hands together for the axios transportation coordinator. Correspondent. [applause] hi, everybody. Im sure youre wondering why i brought my surfboard today. Its actually not a surfboard though. This is a propeller for the future of electric aviation. Please join me in welcoming the founder and ceo ofjobe aviation. [applause] welcome, thank you. Thank you very much for being here. Rolling stone called you the orval and Wilbur Wright of aviation. Im not sure what that says about you. No pressure on that. I think we need to let people know what we are talking about. We have a video here that i think we will queue up. Walk us through what we see here. Tell us about this. We are building a new age of Aviation Transportation where we move into the sky and we are not is building the aircraft, we are also building a new type of company, a new Aviation Company that designs, builds and tests almost every single component on the aircraft. We been flying this aircraft at fullscale since 2017 so we really understand the operational characteristics of it and we designed it to be dramatically quieter. With mayor adams, we showed it in new york city where we were able to showcase the acoustic profile of the aircraft and how people in manhattan get to experience this revolutionary technology firsthand. As you see here, the acoustic profile, we can serve cities without impacting them. We can serve communities without impacting them. We are also building a nextgeneration Manufacturing Company in the design and vertical integration we built into the company is exciting. Fantastic, i want to understand where this idea came from. I understand you grow up in a pretty remote part of california. I didnt think there were remote parts of california but apparently there are. How did that inspire you to think about a different way of traveling . I had a unique upbringing. I was born off the grid before being off the grid was cool. There was no electricity. When i was born, we didnt have telephones. It was a Pivotal Moment when i was four years old that i got to ride on the back of the bulldozer to put in the telephone service. It was a very remote upbringing but it was pivotal for me because it taught me a deep understanding of the way the world works and how things work. It was also a long way from school. I went to a school that had really inspiring teachers that i could not dream of going to school anywhere else but it was a long trip. I drove with my parents but they both worked so i would take the city bus home and then walk home. It gave me a lot of time to dream about a better way to get from ato b and i dreamt of being able to fly. The airplane didnt work because i lived in this near the redwoods so you can build a runway in the mountains and helicopters were very loud. I had to figure out a better way to bring flight to peoples daily lives. And you did. And we are doing it with an incredible team. When and where we would be able to fly in these things . Thats the exciting part. This is not some sciencefiction reality that will happen far into the future, its happening now. Weve been doing the heavy lifting and flying at fullscale since 2017. Weve been working on the certification with the faa. The progress were making is really exciting. In may of 2020, we got error g1 which is the stage for base high level certification we are just we have completed stage ii in stage three and we are work on stage iv so its interesting to see the progress we are making. We are testing every single system that goes into building our aircraft. With that plus our 135 certificate and 141 then we can launch our commercial passenger service. Another element which is a parallel track to bringing the service is we work with the department of defense. I delivered the first aircraft to Edwards Air Force base. We just recently today announced we will be delivering our third and fourth aircraft to mcgill aircraft air force base in florida and we are excited about the expanding partnership with the u. S. Government across multiple different branches and bringing this transformative new technology to both government customers as well as consumers. Why is the government and the department of defense specifically a good bridge to this technology . They are not committing to work, right . What is their use for it . Initially, they can use it to move people and supplies. Thats on bases in the u. S. And in broader applications. For us, its incredibly valuable to be able to have an early customer. Back in 2016, we began working with the Defense Innovation unit. We were one of their first projects. We were just a small team, handful of folks and would begin working closely with them. With a few Million Dollar investment or not even, a contract with them, we parlayed that into tens of millions of dollars of Venture Capital which overtime has now grown to the point where we were raised more than 2 billion. This is a fantastic example of a Publicprivate Partnership where a little bit of support from the government, a little bit of the signal from the government grows and grows. We took that to the prime program which is successful. We are seeing these types of programs within the government by driving innovation and leadership in this next generation of aviation. For the average people out here in the audience, i know you have a partnership with delta airlines. Tell me when i can fly in it and how much will it cost . It looks like a rich mans toy. Thank you for bringing up delta. They are a spectacular partner for us. We were very thoughtful when we chose our Airline Partner to launch our service in the u. S. Delta holds Customer Service and the Customer Experience that in high regard. They really care about delivering a spectacular experience and an affordable experience. Delta has invested billions of dollars into new terminal infrastructure at jfk, laguardia and lax. New york and lar critical markets for us. What we want to build and what we are having in the planning process is part of the reason we went to new york with mayor adams, it was the infrastructure peace and being able to build best in class infrastructure where you can get off your delta flight and onto our flight as soon as possible. Building support of infrastructure at jfk and laguardia and lax to give that fantastic Customer Experience of a tight integration between your delta flight and our flight. In terms of the cost, you look at a flight from jfk to manhattan. That might take you more than our on the ground. Some people that live in new york say can take up to two hours. If we can transform that into a seven minute flight, we think thats an exciting prospect. We also want to make it affordable and accessible to everyone. We will price that comparable to what you would pay for a taxi or an uber. But thats dependent on having a lot of these things flying i presume. Everything is about economies of scale. Are these going to be everywhere . We are ramping up the manufacturing capacity as fast as we can. Toyota is one of our largest investors and is been working with us in 2019 to design manufacturing ability and quality into our system so that we can ramp the production volume. I think its important to frame where we are on this journey. When you look back in the early days of automotive, the automobile was progressively invented in the 1870s and 1880s. The production kind of started in fits and starts through the 1890s but it wasnt really until the early 1900s were Global Automotive manufacturing really started to ramp. Today, weve announced we have a pilot manufacturing line in california and we set a goal to be run rate of one aircraft per month by the end of the year. You ask whether there will be lots of these. Today we produced 100 million automobiles per year. Getting from 10 to 100 million is a lot of steps and this is not going to happen in a year or five years, this is going to be a gradual build of manufacturing capacity as he moved from 10 to hundreds of thousands of aircraft per year but its really exciting. Its the early days of a new mode of transportation. So you are channeling orville and Wilbur Wright. We have a couple of photos here. I think it would be helpful for you to tell us how they fly. Describe the propellers and what happens when it takes off and when it flies. It carries a pilot and four passengers. It takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter but has a wing suet can transition and fly efficiently like an airplane. It flies at 200 Miles Per Hour and one of the critical pieces is because its flying so fast, instead of a an average of 200 Miles Per Hour, you have productivity. When you are moving four passengers, you are able to deliver a lot of passenger Miles Per Hour which is what makes the economics really exciting. U. S. About the propellers. They are integral to the acoustic profile which is near and dear to my dream. Its one of the areas where we invested a lot of time and energy. As you pointed out, the piece that makes it able to be really quiet is the motors we designed into the aircraft which allows to spend those propellers slowly. Its not just the quantity of noise but also the quality of the noise which is more a whossh than a wop wop of a helicopter. We find that sound annoying. Thats crucial. We designed it to be really intuitive to get in and out of, similar to getting out ofan atv. That way its adaptable to people. They get in and they say is roomy and it feels like sitting in my car. Thats the experience we want people to have. Its something very familiar. You talked about the sound, if you havent had a chance, down in the lobby, there is an audio experience where you can put these headphones on and compare the sound of different types of flights. If that doesnt convince you why these are important, i dont know what will. It was pretty incredible to me. That was one of the great things about bringing it to new york is the Community Folks got to experience it not just, they got to put on the earphones and listen to it and then they got to see it and they were sold. They said we cant wait to have it in new york. We want that experience for people in communities across the country and around the world. Where to these things land and how do we charge them . Will they be hopping from rooftop to rooftop . Thats exactly right. Initially, there will be infrastructure at the airport and in manhattan, this is one of the critical pieces that the mayor announced that they would electrify the helipads in new york. We worked with the faa to show that with their precision landings, we can use the helipads that are out there currently. We will also be able to take advantage of all of the thousands of existing small airports around the country to provide really vitally needed transportation to underserved communities. You asked about electrification, we built a new charging standard. This allows us to not just charge the battery but also condition the battery to get a remarkable turn out of them. Weve had many 25 mile per hour flights before you replace the battery pack which is crucial for the Environmental Impact of our service as well. You are like tesla in that youve designed a special charging system that works with your aircraft like tesla did with her car. In the Auto Industry, every ended up standardizing on teslas system. Is that going to happen with you . Weve made our system flexible and we like it to be the standards of everybody can build these charging systems and take advantage of the incredible work our team has done developing this stateoftheart aviation charging standard. What are the technical challenges that remain before these can become mainstream . I presume a lot of and involves batteries but there might be other things as well. We been flying fullscale aircraft in 2017 so the technical challenges in terms of the design of the aircraft, we work through. The critical piece now is the scaling. Thats why the partnership with toyota is vitally important as we look to press the print button and ramp up the flight rule so we can produce more and more of these aircraft every year. We can make them more widely available. As you were saying, if everybody thats flying from jfk wants to take one, we need a lot of aircraft and then we need to replicate that to communities across the country. There is a massive opportunity. Is a long Time Automotive writer, its interesting how important the Auto Industry is to aviation in producing these things in mass scale. We only have about a minute left we like to end with one fun thing. I did some research and i found out that you have invented other things, one of which i have in my house. What is a gorilla pod . This takes me back about 30 years when i was at stanford and there was a team of us and we were assigned a class project which was to design a better camera tripod. We built this thing called a gorilla pod which had ball and socket joints and you could wrap it around things. A lot of people fell in love with it and it was a really fantastic success on many different dimensions. It also provided the capital to start on my childhood dream of building a better way to move around every day. I will always be grateful for that cute little tripod. Im grateful for it as well because you can strap it on offense and take good pictures and good videos. Anyway, thank you for that. Its been a pleasure, thank you so much for traveling here to be at the summit. Before our next session, i wanted to encourage you if you are not already a subscriber to my newsletter, i coright it with Alex Fitzpatrick and jennifer kingston. Its called axios whats next. We cover a lot of these topics weve been discussing all day today. You can subscribe online at the axios website. Please remain seated, we have one final segment before our reception which is upstairs. I also encourage you to go downstairs and try the headphones and other things we have on display. Without further ado, im thrilled welcome back to the stage mike allen. [applause] i mentioned doing the intro that this is whats next is one of our favorite things of the year, great colleagues coming in from around the country including joanne. Now big finish, our next guest from south bend, indiana. The 19 secretary of transportation, secretary pete buttigieg, whats next . Welcome back. [applause] thank you so much for joining. The department has five goals, safety, jobs, Equity Climate and the fifth is innovation. We always get to talk about building, innovating so whats something thats in your purview thats transportation innovation . Doesnt sound sexy but there is an opportunity potential to develop selfhealing puddles, pavement that can heal itself. Any former mayor knows this is worthwhile. Im religious against the battle against potholes. We lose so much of the value of our infrastructure and how it falls apart. I spent this morning on the Washington Bridge in rhode island, its a huge pain point because part of it is out of service. It was built in the 60s and they are now working on a project to completely reconstructed. They have to which they are hoping they can replace it with the bridge that last 100 years but we can construct bridges that will last 500 years. If we can just extend the life of her infrastructure with better materials and we are working on that right now, we Fund Research at a level people dont naturally associate with the u. S. Department of transportation on everything from pavement durability to ai applications and the design of streets. We are excited about what that could mean for this next generation of infrastructure. We are still living with the decisions made in the eisenhower era good and bad about how to build highways and roads and bridges. Lets make sure in the biden era that we are building this generational infrastructure right and preparing for the next generation to be more durable, more green, more smart and more equitable and more safe than we ever could imagine. You have people on the edge of their seat for pavement. You can pop on your iphone and pop in on a charger. Its not out of the question that electric vehicle can charge by induction. They are prototyping this now and if you can do it while its sitting still, you can conceivably do it while its moving. They are testing this in detroit. Its not ready for prime time but its in the works. A truly smart roadway would be something to look at. Weve gotten used to thinking of most of the intelligence so to speak living in the vehicle, the cars are getting smarter, the planes are getting smarter but some of the intelligence can live in the infrastructure. Thats why you are hearing a lot about vehicle to communication, the battle for spectrum which is becoming a real challenge. But its also a real opportunity. Part of whats at stake is making sure there is enough bandwidth for vehicles to actually communicate with the infrastructure. Not only is the traffic light communicate with the driver but conceivably, there could be beacons communicating with the car advising it and warning it and updating it in ways the driver doesnt have to worry about. Boeing has been on your desk a lot lately, how much of what we are seeing reflects systemic issues and how much of it is it going through a phase . I think theres a little bit of both. We think there is some real concerns. There are concerns with Quality Control at boeing and thats why the administrators gave them 90 days to present a comprehensive plan how to address those issues they said we are not going to allow them to increase their production until they can demonstrate that they can do it safely. At the same time, incidents seem to cluster as part of job and i clinically to figure out if that is a cluster or whether it just looks that way based on what got attention. The other important thing to keep track of here is this reflects the extremely High Standard that we hold aviation safety too. The fact that not a crash but something that could conceivably have led to a crash is itself national news, in a way it reflects the extraordinary Safety Record we have in this country. The aviation sector is working very hard to make sure we keep it that way. To illustrate this, to give you a sense of how detailed and careful we arent aviation safety, you may have noticed that when you work on many newer airplanes, the little hook the shape of your thumb on the front or back of the seat in front of you in economy anyway. You can use it to hang your jacket on that little hook. What you may not have noticed and i noticed recently is if you are in an exit row, that little piece of plastics not there on the seat in front of you. It is theoretically possible that during an evacuation, having a coat hanging there could slow you down. Thats the level of detail that goes into the regulation and practice of aviation safety. In addition to sustaining that, we need to start applying that level of rigor to auto safety. We are number of people equivalent to a fully loaded 737 died today and will again tomorrow and will again the next day and it wont get any coverage at all. 30,000 people die in this country every year and roadway crashes. Part of a goal is to get this country to become a place where that seems as quaint and antiquated as having dysentery on the oregon trail. I think we can get there. Aviation is part of that story and so is regulation. We will move around a bit. We did an interview earlier and i asked you window or aisle . You are a napper so you liked the window. Would you sit against a window in a boeing plane . I just did the other day. I think it was yesterday. Every time i get on a plane, i know i am participating in the safest mode of transportation in america. I know the people who work hard to keep it that way, thats art of why way youre pressing boeing so hard now. The rails is the president s favorite form of transportation. What is a route that would be as common at the end of President Bidens second term . When effort we are funding is called bright line west. This is a Publicprivate Partnership if they meet their aggressive but they currently have rail in florida, the same firm is now launching a project going from nevada to southern california. If they hit all of their marks, their goal is to be in Revenue Service by the time of the olympus which means during the last year present biden second term, there would be Revenue Service true highspeed rail. Most of it will run down the medium of i15. That would take you on a stretch of road that is described as a parking lot on weekends. Its incredibly congested, incredibly overworked. That could be one of the first places americans really experience actual highspeed rail and once we do, i think theres no going back. Thats in the biden second term . Yes, this could happen in 2028. It goes from las vegas as far as Rancho Cucamonga and ties into regional connections. The homerun to put be something to get all the way to l. A. They will not be in Revenue Service soon. The concept is to go from dallas to houston and i think its a great example of the population density that would support rail. The reason we cant have trains as good as you was because we dont have the layout but you can find lots of places in the u. S. And i know texas is like europe but one thing they have in common is you have major metropolitan centers that are rather long drive or short flight. Those are perfect candidates for highspeed rail. We are investing in the planning associated with it. Its interesting what could connect them. They want to use a Different Technology and there are many different ideas in many have significant roles. To have a visa and evs in your purview. You see Driverless Cars as a piece of this whole picture. There is a crisis of roadway death which doesnt get the attention it deserves. Its on par with gun violence in terms of how many lives are lost. Imagine if we are paying as much attention on working on it and fighting on as much as we do the fight against gun violence. A big part of the solution can be technology. The truth is we as human drivers have a murderous track record when it comes to fatalities and injuries. Behind the wheel. The potential of partial or full Automation Technology is enormous. We have to get from here to there. Safely and it has to be not just as good but it has to be dramatically better. In order to earn the Public Acceptance that will be associated with those technologies. We are in a valley of death between where we started and where we need to get to. Right now, and love the most sophisticated cars, half of the technology is about protecting you from the other half of the technology. Youve got some of the spiff your cars now that are tracking your eye movements. For the Cruise Control will disengage if it doesnt think your hands on the wheel. Very Good Technology but that means we need technology to keep you from depending on the technology. Its three steps forward and two steps back in terms of the safety benefits. If it continues to develop the way needs to and you work hard as a regulator to put boundaries around and work and Industries Work very hard to develop this and it will payoff in terms of the lives we could say. We have finally started tentatively to reduce the rise and roadway deaths weve experienced over the last decade or so. We saw good time disco down laughter by about 4 . 400 people who didnt die, thats what 1 improvement represents. I believe we can get to zero i know that sounds pie in the sky to some but the reason i believe in the vision of zero is individual location thing in the u. S. Have achieved it. Washington, d. C. Has never had a year with zero traffic fatalities. Jersey city has, hoboken has an illinois has. The more we can at each passing year to that roster of cities or neighborhoods within cities to achieve zero, the closer we get to a goal i think should match our reality and expectation in a typical year for passenger aviation which is zero. Cabinet secretary dont always get to deliver good news but one of the president s infrastructure bill, 40,000 projects have been awarded and i was asking you backstage, is it true that dot has half of the projects in the infrastructure bill and you said its true but most of the project but half of the funding. You get to deliver a lot of good news. Its the best part of the job. There is so many places in communities that have been trying to do this for years and years. Its never been possible because they havent had the funding. Some of this is what ive described as the cathedrals of our infrastructure. We are investing in the hudson river tunnel, the finest engineering stateoftheart of the Teddy Roosevelt administration. It needs to be redone. That will be one of the biggest public works projects in the United States. Its exciting to see that finally happen because we are able to commit more than 10 billion to see it through. Some of the most moving projects ive been able to see our sixfigure projects. They mean everything to the community they were in. I was in south dakota, 2500 people in chamberlain, south code anna airport that they use for an air ambulance to get to a Trauma Center which is hours away for a hospital. Its also important for crop dusting their general aviation terminal is basically a manufacturing mobile home. You can tell its a double wide. With about seven or 800,000 dollars, we are funding a real building in the difference that will make two patients, to pilot and everybody in between is huge. Tears were coming to the eyes of the local officials when we went to celebrate that project. Whether its a project in a community that most people in washington of never heard of or whether its one of these cathedral infrastructure the people up and wondering how to get done for decades, all of that is happening through this infrastructure package. We dont get to say yes to most of the applications that come in because the need is so great. We are able to say yes more than any of my other predecessors. Not only do i have the best job in the federal government but this is the best time ever to have that job. You were very early to recognize the power of online communication to reach people in your campaigns. You been in office two years and youve done 1800 interviews . Many of them from that blue background studio so youre coming up on 2000 interviews. What is the secret to communicating on sunday shows and others . I dont have big secrets but one thing i found is 1800 are probably local television but we do gma or meet the press and some others. The biggest thing i would say that ive learned is that even though the audiences can be different, the interviews dont have to be that different. Thats because i cut my teeth as mayor of a small city where every week, i would go to a local tv station. I would make my rounds and sit down with the anchor and theyve asked me whatever tough issues there were and i dy answer. Even though the viewing audience if i do that on cbs might be 1000 times more, the experience is not that different. You have something to say and so i tried to make sure the weather im talking about the specific tv and wisconsin or whether im doing a sunday show on behalf of the administration, have the same, im saying the same things. Im speaking to the same issues which are mostly not about the washington drama and the bills they got pastor didnt and who gets credit but about was getting done and how its making everyday life better. Thats the reason our work matters in the government is its somebodys everyday life. Gets better or gets worse. Whether we talk about cosmic issues around democracy or things like the right to choose for Marriage Equality or whether we are talking about fixing an airport in south dakota, it matters because somebodys life gets better if we get it right. President biden likes to see you on tv . He teases me about how much i am on tv. I love getting out there and talking about the good news. We deal with bad news as well. Anything any times on the bad happens we talk about that as well but you follow the bad news for passenger rights. Within a year, we had southwest with the toughest enforcement action in d. O. T. History. With it, we are requiring them to issue the most generous reimbursement going forward. If you get stuck in southwest, they are responsible in addition to the baseline rights we protect with a 75 voucher. Im hoping other airlines will hope to emulate that. Our jobs to try to respond to that news and have that develop into good news and to tell the story about the good news. When something is uncontroversial and unambiguously good, it doesnt get that much attention. Good news is no news. That means we have to work that much harder to get on tv and get on the ground and i take about a trip a week to make sure people cant miss the good things this administration is doing to make their lives better whether its what i work on in transportation or the rest of the infrastructure packed her package. All politics is personal and you are officially a michigan resident. All my michigan friends want to know if they moved to michigan, are you planning to run for governor when Gretchen Whitmers term ends . Will you go for it . We moved to michigan because the right thing to do for our family. Its helpful to have toddlers next to grandparents if thats an option thats what weve achieved. I dont need to dodge but this job takes about 110 of my intellect and attention. I dont know if i will run for office again or not but i really care about the future of the state that i married into. Ive adopted it and i think Governor Whitmer is doing a fantastic job. We want to finish with one more thing. You are now a triathlete. Yeah. I did one triathlon but i dont know if that makes you a triathlete. It sure does. I will take it. It was really hard. I didnt love it but i had to really lean on my husband to agree to watch the kids what i went on these for our bike rise. Its not just michigan but washington has a fantastic environment to run or take long bike rides. Great training and i enjoyed it but until i have a less manic job, i dont think i can train for Something Like that again. Is we say goodbye, i know a secret about you. You have 2. 5yearold twins and your vehicle is a pacifica. Never thought i would be a fan. Nobody things they will be a van person. Its like changing. Very grateful for bank of america hosting us today and we thank our sponsors and we are grateful to the incredible events team, they pull off miracle after miracle. We love to see you upstairs. We have goodies and we love to can to continue to connect. Thank you for a fantastic conversation. Thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption cont democracy