CSPAN - Lawmakers Gather at McCain Institute Forum in Sedona, AZ

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May 3, 2025 15:26-17:05 - CSPAN

01:38:47

Lawmakers Gather at McCain Institute Forum in Sedona, AZ

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kelly loeffler

05:39

kelly odonnell

nbc 06:00

ruben gallego

sen/d 12:26

sheldon whitehouse

sen/d 12:29

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joni ernst

sen/r 03:58

tammy thueringer

cspan 01:27

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Speaker	Time	Text
Soft Power's Role in Food Security 00:15:19
unidentified		Because they keep saying how bad things are going to be, and yet he's actually doing pretty good.
		Now, when you hear the numbers and then you hear the media, it don't coincide.
		And I think the media is trying very hard to get the public to really panic and go and try to stop them from spending and that kind of stuff.
		I don't see it.
		We're going to leave this here.
		You can finish watching anytime online at c-span.org or on the C-SPAN Now mobile app.
		We go live now to Sedona, Arizona, where members of Congress have gathered at the McCain Institute for conversations about the Russia-Ukraine war, cybersecurity, foreign aid, and international trade.
		This is live coverage on C-SPAN.
		It's possible, it's maybe, it could be.
		Introduced two women that I care deeply about.
		Off the record, they love really bad TV, junk food, and care about their dogs deeply.
		They are also the godmothers of my son.
		On the record, Sidney McCain is the executive director of the World Food Program, dealing with a crisis that is 343 million people hungry every day.
		She just had a $4 billion budget cut and had to lay off 6,000 people.
		The need is intense.
		We are at a 2017 budget with three times the need.
		Today, she'll get into how important food security is, what's happening in the world, and how we can make a difference in this room.
		Interviewing her today is Kelly O'Donnell, award-winning journalist who has served in many crises, the halls of the White House, interviewed Senator McCain early on and throughout his career, and is a longtime friend of both the family and the Institute.
		Ladies.
		Thank you, Megan.
		Hello, everyone.
		Good to see you.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		I'm particularly excited about our conversation because there are both important policy and public service things to talk about and a few fun things for us to talk about as well.
unidentified		Let's start, though.
unidentified		We are under the banner of a cause greater than.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		And so much of the conversation here is about that vision, the principles behind it, and the courage it takes to do it.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		Do you feel we are in a moment where it is harder for that ideal to break through, given all of the mood of the country and the world and the conflicts that are around us?
unidentified		Is it harder today to support a cause greater than oneself?
		I think, first of all, thank you for being here.
		I'm very grateful.
		And it is different from last year.
		Anyway, I think it's yes.
		To answer the direct question, I think yes, it is more difficult to do that.
		But it's not without people wanting to do it.
		I truly believe in the great spirit of Americans because we are the ones that give.
		We're there.
		We're the first ones on the ground.
		We're always on the edge of making sure that we can make it better and do it better, make it better, fix whatever it is, save whoever it is.
		But it's becoming difficult.
		Right now, Megan mentioned, we took a $4 billion billion with a B billion dollar cut in funding.
		We have needs right now that I is, so you know of many of them, but there's many that you don't know about that are just as tragic as the ones that get the headlines.
		So with that, it's been very difficult for us at World Food Program to prioritize because everything's a priority and starving people are a priority.
		And so I have to make the decisions and have made the decisions to take food from the hungry to give to the starving because I don't have enough food now.
		And so it's been, it's been, this has been a rough couple of years because the world's on fire.
		I've never seen it like this.
		None of us have.
		And it is becoming more difficult because the political climate is more difficult now.
		And that climate includes sort of an American focus inward.
		The administration supports that.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		Many of the people who voted for President Trump have that kind of a view, making it probably a harder sell to talk about giving in a global way.
		Part of the conversations here have certainly focused on military capability, economic strength, innovation, and all of those are things that put us into kind of the hard power of the United States.
		The soft power has long been one of the jewels of American leadership, but it may be having a moment where it's harder.
unidentified		What do you see in your role about what could be lost?
		What is at stake when it comes to American soft power?
		Well, I'll begin with the discussion that's rather new to this arena is that food security is national security.
		Food security is national security.
		And without the basics being food and medicine, et cetera, people are either going to die, they're going to migrate, or they're going to start a conflict.
		And that's exactly what's happening right now.
		The soft power advantage that, and I'll speak directly about WFP, of course, but the soft power advantage that we have is that we make a difference in the communities.
		It's not just about the individual.
		One of our programs, for example, is called our school feeding programs.
		Kids who can't get food at home, their parents can't feed them, especially little girls, can go to school and be fed because one of our programs exists in that school.
		And it does more than just feed the kids because we usually buy locally so that the local economy is helped by that and it's fresher, it's better for them, et cetera, all those kinds of things.
		So just that's one example in many programs that we have that deal with in the soft power arena.
		And this one's very successful and very necessary too.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		And what have you seen when you have been in places deploying resources where some of them bear the American flag or people associate you with the United States, certainly all the other global partners?
unidentified		But what do you see about the influence that that can generate?
		Well, I've seen the look on people's faces when they see when we open our trucks or begin to offload the bags with the American flag on the front of it.
		I mean, that gives not just food, it gives hope.
		It gives help and hope.
		And hope is a large part of even surviving the circumstances that most of the people that I work with and work for.
		There are beneficiaries in this particular way.
		The United States of America is successful.
		It's generous.
		It's kind.
		So when they see the U.S. flag or they see us coming in one way or another, they really believe, and rightly so, that they're going to be okay.
		That's a huge soft power advantage, believe me, because I've seen it work.
		But it's also something now we're not going to have because of the cuts.
		And as you know, USAID was cut, I guess, cut out completely now.
		That's a large part of what's very important.
		And from your experience, what does that disruption potentially mean?
		If aid were restarted in a matter of a few years, is that enough to fix the problem?
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		Or is once an interruption like this takes place and some of that soft power is diminished, is it harder to get it restarted?
unidentified		What is your sense of?
		I think it's going to be really hard, primarily because the Chinese are moving in.
		If we're not there, there's a vacuum.
		Meaning the agencies, there's a huge vacuum.
		And Chinese, the Russians, you name it, the bad guys are all over the place, especially in Africa.
		And so that's what happens.
		And they're ready and willing to fill the void.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		And when you talk about food security being national security, I'm pretty sure you don't just mean in the countries in which we're deploying these resources.
unidentified		You're talking about the United States.
		I am talking about the United States.
		And expand on that a little.
		Well, in areas of the world that are extraordinarily complicated, food security is directly tied to national security for this reason.
		Migration, conflict, disease, control, all of those things complicate national security, and it will complicate it for us because we usually get drug into it or are already there.
		So keeping people fed is not only the right thing to do, it's a good investment for the United States of America.
		And it's also something that down the road, one quick story.
		There's a young man that works for us in WFP now and lives in Rome where we're at.
		And he came to me one day, just out of the bully, walked in my office, and he said, I have to tell you something.
		And I said, of course.
		Can I help you?
		What is it?
		He said, this organization fed me when I was a child.
		My parents had to migrate.
		They were on the road.
		They didn't have any food.
		Their father died as a result of it.
		And he said, I'm alive and well today and successful because of WFP.
		That's the kind of thing, that's the difference we make.
		And that's not a single story.
		That's cross-border on this.
		So our organization and other organizations, this is very, very important to this national security and the security of the United States of America.
		And the southern border, of course, complicates this for us, as you know.
		And you are on the front lines and you see and experience those kinds of personal reactions.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		Is there another sort of moment you could share of something where you were in one of those places where the need is so great and you could see almost that moment of transformation?
unidentified		Yeah.
		There's a what part of our program is feeding infants.
		And so we have this special paste that's manufactured, high protein, high everything, to take infants up to the age of one from malnutrition and starvation back into a healthy weight and healthy diet.
		And so I've seen that.
		I've seen that work firsthand.
		And it's just the inability now to be able to give that in bulk and at scale is, we're going to, they're just going to die.
		I mean, I have no other way to put it other than this is something that will completely devastate not just communities, but countries, whole countries.
		Give us a sense of the scale of what you are seeing.
		When you talk about making a decision between someone hungry and someone starving, that is, that really resonates with what you're up against.
		There are no easy days in your business.
		Give us a sense of the scale of the need today and how it has changed.
		Well, as Megan mentioned, we have three times more need than we had in 2017, which is the funding level that we're at right now.
		The scale is enormous, especially, and I'll give you Sudan for an example.
		Sudan is the largest humanitarian crisis on the planet.
		Not many people know that because no one cares.
		And I don't mean people care, but I mean the media sometimes doesn't care.
		The people that give us the news either don't care or just are not tuned into it.
		And so when you see, and I've seen it with my own eyes, because a large portion of them go across the border into Chad, and there's millions of people living on the other side of the border now.
		It's, you know, we're talking about feeding in one camp, 1.2 million people.
		Staggering.
		That's just one camp.
		And now, of course, there's been starvation on that.
		There's cross-border issues are very difficult.
		But now it's become complicated because the bad guys have moved in there.
		They're killing people in the camps.
		There was a mass murder just a couple weeks ago in one of our big camps.
		It killed about 400 people at one time.
		So it's without food and without the ability for people to have access to clean water and food, it just, it's a recipe for disaster, I can't tell you.
		And it's compounding.
		Yeah.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		So in all the years that I've known you covering you, getting to know you better, the one thing I've always learned about Cindy, there is no like ordinary girl's trip.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		When she is traveling, she is headed to some destination that likely the State Department has a warning about.
unidentified		So you go to a lot of places that other people would be afraid to go.
		And you've done it for a long time, long before World Food Program.
		How has that changed your view of are these solvable problems?
		For me, it was like everyone, when you begin work like this or you get involved in things like this, it starts from an experience of some kind.
		And I had an experience that just not only opened my eyes, but broke my heart.
		And so what I see is the spirit of Americans particularly wanting to do something, not knowing how to do it or if they can do it, or being afraid to do it.
		I mean, I'm not suggesting anybody in this room go to the places I go.
		You can't get there anyway, unless you fly on one of our airplanes.
		But the need is so great.
		And like I said before, Americans are always the first ones and they step up to the plate.
		And we need the American spirit more than ever right now in these places, in these countries.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		And there are some tangible benefits to sectors of the American economy when it comes to this.
unidentified		So for example, when you talked about school programs, American farmers are part of the pipeline of supply.
unidentified		Yes, they are.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		Which I think many people are not tapped into unless they're in those circles.
		So when people are talking about there are a lot of problems in the United States and we should focus here and we have fiscal issues here and there are certainly no shortage of problems domestically in the United States to try to tackle.
		How do you try to tell the story of why it is worth it for the American people and the leaders they send to Congress who do the appropriations to continue to pursue these kinds of programs?
Efforts in Gaza 00:10:21
unidentified		Well, just one example in this is, of course, our American farmers who are the backbone of this country.
		In the last five years, WFP, just WFP, there's other organizations that do too.
		We've pumped back into the U.S. economy $6 billion because we buy the commodities, you know, we source many, many, many different things, not just the bags of food that you see, but many, many other things, including equipment, et cetera.
		So it's not a bad deal for the U.S. in terms of what we do, but it's also how it's prescribed, it's how it's described.
		And unfortunately, I think foreign aid, as they call it, I hate that term, but that's foreign aid is a dirty word.
		And I think right now, it seems to be a dirty word.
		Many institutions.
		Because Americans want to help.
		They really do.
		They want to help.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		But part of the question has come, a lot of distrust in institutions, questions about the integrity and effectiveness of institutions, many kinds.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		How do you deal with that issue where people say we want to make certain there's accountability, we want to make certain that, especially on the scale of World Food Program, one of the largest, humanitarian, the largest humanitarian organization in the world.
unidentified		So how do you defend the institution or push the institution to be accountable?
		You know, we're no different than any other country.
		There's fat in many of these organizations and in many of the way it's inefficient and things like that.
		I had a very lucky opportunity because I was the U.S. ambassador to the Rome-based agencies prior to taking on this role.
		So I saw it from the other side and I saw the waste and mismanagement.
		I saw, so when I came on board two years ago, we've already done that.
		We have cleaned up.
		We're not fat anymore.
		We're efficient.
		We're effective.
		We have trimmed way down in the numbers of people.
		We still have ways to go because of the recent cuts.
		But it's the right thing to do.
		We need to be good stewards of our donor dollars, and especially for me, the United States.
		So I took it very personally when I saw the waste and the mismanagement and the ineffectiveness and the non-use of anything technologically advanced.
		And so we've come about face in two years.
		And I don't think the former folks would recognize how we operate because we're different now.
		And we had, I knew we had to adapt to the times because I could see what was going to happen with the funding.
		But for us, I'm very grateful that we've done that.
		We faced this particular dilemma with regards to funding in a different way.
		And we've also encouraged our European partners and our private sector partners and of course private family donors, et cetera, to step up to the plate and help us out.
		This is a problem that not one country can fix or help.
		We need everybody involved in this, absolutely everybody, to make sure that people don't do the things that I described, the starvation, the migration, the it sounds like you were a little bit ahead of Elon Musk in the rooting out of.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		And so are there some technical things that are available today that weren't maybe a few years or even a generation ago that can help to deliver or execute or assess what your needs are?
unidentified		Well right now we are in the process of implementing drones for drone food drops in some areas that are really dicey and really dangerous.
		That's a good option for us.
		It really keeps our people safe.
		In giving the smallholder farmers the ability to predict weather patterns, changes, water usage, those kinds of things, and the tools to do it because it can all run off a cell phone.
		That's another way that we put into the field.
		We do cash-based transfers.
		Now, why you may say, oh my God, the cash is going in the hands of the bad guys.
		It's not.
		It's going in the hands of the women and it's a voucher on their phone and they can't get it without their face and their phone.
		So those kinds of things have made it easier, has made food more accessible, it's fresher, it helps the local economies.
		That's something that we designed and implemented, and now it's UN-wide, UN system-wide.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		And you have been at the helm during a period where we've seen two very prominent wars.
unidentified		You talked about the emergency in Sudan, but there's been a lot of focus on Ukraine and a lot of focus on Gaza.
		You are someone who has been on the ground in Gaza.
		You've seen it up close.
		Where is that crisis as it stands today?
		Efforts toward peace, but there are still difficulties in getting aid in.
		What's your assessment right now?
		Well, right now we're not getting anything in.
		There has not been an ounce of food delivered inside Gaza since March 2nd, I think it was, was the last ability to get it in.
		The last usable food dried up about 10 days ago.
		So there is no, I mean, there is nothing on the ground to eat or utilize in any way.
		There's no medicine.
		There's no food, none of that.
		World Central, Nate Mook's here someplace.
		World Central Kitchen has the same problem and they're unable to cook.
		They have their kitchens and stuff.
		And so they're suffering from the same problem we are.
		And the impediments are many.
		Yeah, but what stands in the way, do you think, for any kind of a breakthrough there?
		And do you see any sense of opportunity coming?
		Okay.
		Food should never be politicized.
		And that's what's happening.
		Food is being, I won't say it's a weapon.
		I'm not going to use that term because I don't believe that.
		But I do believe, I do know that right now it's being, it's a political pawn in all of it.
		It's a leverage point.
		It is, absolutely.
		And so those kinds of things have to be dealt with from a political level.
		That's why I talk to my European friends a lot and others to help me help me deal with the situation because we need help.
		We need the voices of the leaders around the world to stop this and make sure that we can continue to feed.
		But the world's complicated and that may sound trite, but it's complicated and we're kind of tied up in it.
		And I think the lack of understanding about who we are and what we do and why we're important is something that I think is not understood by many of our newer politicians within the government and other governments too.
		That's some of the diplomacy and outreach part of your role.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		Are you finding you have to pivot in ways to find new partners or to draw attention in new ways?
unidentified		You talked about outreach to Europe, to donor families, things like that.
		Where are the potential opportunities for a breakthrough in terms of increasing awareness and maybe getting more action?
		Well, people are listening now.
		I mean, we're not having any problem getting in the door at all.
		It's just a matter of how they see how they fit in.
		A lot of organizations don't want to give to the emergency.
		They'd rather give to the development side of it.
		Well, the truth is we can't get to the development side until we feed the emergency.
		Why is that?
		What's the reasoning behind that?
		You know, I think they feel it's more of a long-term investment, which it is.
		I mean, it's a good use of money, but we still need the funding to be able to do what we're doing in Gaza, what we're doing in DRC, what we're doing in Sudan, Somalia, the Sahel, all the way across.
		The idea that somehow we can, like, Africa is like an afterthought.
		And I'm not suggesting anyone in this room believes that, but there are some organizations and some people that really think it's just hopeless.
		Let's get out.
		Why do anything there?
		We can't do that.
		We cannot do that.
		And so organizations like WFP and others have maintained a very strong presence all across the continent.
		And we need to stay because it's getting larger and it's getting worse.
		And it's also not enabling their own people to try to help themselves.
		So we've got to feed the emergency first and then we'll go straight into the development then.
		And what are the other hotspots that keep you up at night?
		Oh, God.
		Well, Ukraine, of course.
		Ukraine.
		I think initially it was Sudan.
		It's actually all of them.
		I don't know why I even hesitate.
		It's all the above.
		What I can't fathom is having to make the choices.
		And it's been really hard for me.
		It does keep me awake.
		I have shed tears over it.
		I have tried to figure out what am I missing?
		What can I do better?
		Who can I talk to?
		Anybody?
		And I will work with anybody to be able to feed people.
		And it's important that we all work together for this.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		Do you get a sense that there's a political climate willing to receive you when you say I'll work with anybody?
unidentified		Well, yes, I can speak to the ones that already have done that.
		And I'm hoping others will too.
		But it's when I tell them, you know, we're neutral.
		We are of a sequel part of the United Nations.
		We have no agenda other than to feed.
		That's what we do.
		So there's no politics involved in what we do.
		And in fact, we can't even really talk about politics within the confines of the UN.
		It's all around you.
		So it is not what you deal in.
Pope Francis: A Man of Kindness 00:02:22
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		Because you're based in Rome, you've had a chance to get to know someone who was one of your neighbors in Pope Francis.
unidentified		And obviously a conclave is soon to begin, and there will be a new leader of the Catholic Church.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		But is there anything you can just share about what it was like to experience his presence and his concerns about the work that you do?
unidentified		What a glorious man he was.
		I had the opportunity to sit and talk with him twice.
		And first time it was the formal invitation.
		I was a new agency head.
		The second time we got a call and said it was from the Vatican and they said the Pope would like to see Executive Director Cindy McCain.
		And I hear this, I go, oh my God, I feel like I'm going to the principal's office.
		I'm in trouble.
		What have I done?
		I'm reading things at night.
		Where did I blow this from?
		What have I done?
		And this man who led the world in kindness and love and caring was worried about me.
		He brought me in to ask me how I was.
		Wow.
		And I walked out there.
		I was not a Catholic before, but I'm going in now.
		But I mean, that's the kind of man he was.
		And for him to take time and worry about me was, I mean, obviously it changed my life.
		It really did.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm an Irish Catholic, and so any favorable Pope talk, I'm always happy to hear.
		One of the things that in our coming together here, too, we've had a chance to see some of the plans for the McCain Library, which is exciting, from early conversations about what it might someday be to actually seeing drawings and plans, and there's real work.
		What is your hope for what that will be and how it will extend in generations?
unidentified		So many of us in this room had the chance to get to know, or in my case, cover Senator McCain.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		And there will be a time when there are fewer and fewer of us, and the legacy has a chance to influence future generations.
Celebrate McCain's Legacy 00:10:06
unidentified		What is your hope for what it can be?
		Well, I hope it does just that.
		I hope it reminds it.
		This is not a place to memorialize John McCain.
		This is a place to celebrate not only his visions and the things he stood for and how he learned his lessons during the course of his life.
		And those are the kind of things, certainly to our younger folks, our younger people, but also to future politicians and people that are around the world that come in.
		John McCain was a very unique individual, and everyone knows that, obviously, that's kind of an understatement.
		But his vision and his love for this country and not just his vision, but his ability to see things, maybe make a mistake or two, admit he made the mistake, and go back around.
		Those qualities and a lot of the moral compass issues are not being not happening right now.
		And I think it's, I'm hoping that this will help get the world back on track.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		And when the Institute honors people for courage or inspirational leadership or lifts people up, if you work backwards from the point when they receive these honors and they're held up here, are there lessons that people can take to become more courageous, willing to serve a cause larger than self, who may never win the awards, but can see a pathway.
unidentified		See a pathway.
		So if you work backwards, what have you learned about what it takes to embody those qualities?
		Well, I think in this particular level, certainly at the library level, if it can inspire anybody, any child, any adult, anybody, to just get involved, be better, do something that would make a difference to your fellow man.
		That's really what John stood for: just doing the right thing, making the right decisions, admitting when you have mistakes, and learn from your mistakes.
		He was good at that.
		I was there for a lot of fight on the floor and then he comes off.
		Exactly.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		And we are going to open it up for sharing this more broadly.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		So I know you probably have had questions you want to ask, and we're going to invite you into the conversation here on all subjects.
unidentified		Certainly, I've learned a lot in hearing some of these difficult decisions you have to make in this role and what's at stake.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		And certainly, many people might wonder if they believe that there is a greater need and that in the name of the American people they'd like to see more done.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		What is your sort of call to action for typical citizens, for lawmakers who are in this room of both parties?
unidentified		What should people, what step would be most helpful in your assessment right now?
		I think, in my opinion, would be to first of all pay attention and find out what's going on in your neighborhood, in your community, in your state, et cetera.
		And for the United States of America, I'll use Haiti as that example.
		Haiti's forgotten.
		A neighbor.
		And a neighbor, yeah.
		So I hope that people would consider that.
		And also, I think those paths, and those of us in this room who are of advanced age, that can be better mentors to our younger folks for this reason is very, very important.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		One of the things I hear since I'm in the news business, a lot of times when I'm encountering people who are not in the news business, I hear frequently, I can't watch right now.
unidentified		I can't read.
		It's too much.
		Whatever it might be.
		The world is a complicated, difficult place wherever you are politically.
		And people want to break.
		Yeah.
		I get that.
		I do too.
		I get it.
		And at the same time, if people disengage too much, then it has a real impact too.
		So how do you suggest people handle the balance?
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		Because if there's anyone who has to weigh keeping yourself sane and going and happy while you're doing work that is emotionally draining, how do you find that balance?
unidentified		And what would you say to people who want to take a little bit of break from a difficult world?
		It's fair enough to take a break.
		I do that.
		I'm here.
		This is a great place to take a break.
		But more importantly, remember, if we don't do it, either nobody will do it or the bad guys will do it.
		And we can't, we're better than that.
		And I know that folks in the United States believe in the good faith of other people and they believe in humanity.
		And a lot of other places don't.
		So I would hope that if nothing more comes out of this organization here today or anything else, that you would take away the understanding that it is necessary to participate and be a part of this and not sit back.
		You don't have to read it every day.
		I kind of have a day where I pick my cell phone and throw it because I don't want to know what's on it.
		But we have to be involved.
		We have to stay involved.
		We have to be a part of this and we have to be good stewards of democracy and freedom and all the things that we stand for.
		And we can't do it if people are hungry.
		It simply won't happen.
		So we'll start with the basics and that's food.
		Very good.
		Well, let's open it up.
		Let's get you involved.
		Who's got a question?
		Yes.
		The mics are coming around.
		Thank you very much.
		Thank you, Ambassador McCain, for your amazing work and for speaking up for the victims of famine around the world and identifying cases where food is being weaponized.
		I wanted to ask your view on the broader political moment that we're in, and especially since you're based out of Italy, as someone who is very proud to be an American, but originally came from the UK.
		Europeans look at what's happening in America and see it betraying its leadership in the world, its values, and even more than that, breaking a fundamental trust with allies.
		It's a very scary moment for much of the world to see the disturbance that is happening here in America.
		And I sometimes worry that people here don't fully appreciate quite how much that sense of trust has been betrayed.
		My question to you, as the representative of the magnificent McCain family, is I always ask myself in every challenge because I love your family and I respected your husband so much, what would John McCain do?
		Would he be speaking out?
		Would he be more vocal on the Senate floor?
		And how can his colleagues find that same profile and courage that he so represented to help people understand that what is going on right now is not American at all?
		Thank you.
		Well, thank you for the question.
		I know one thing, he'd be fighting like hell.
		He would be once again doing what he always did and bringing people together and making them understand what's at stake with what's happening.
		And it's not just in my area, but as you said, the people in Europe are really scared and they see what's happening and they know this isn't who we are.
		I had this very discussion literally two weeks ago with the minister of foreign minister of Italy, Tehani, and he asked me the same thing.
		What's going on?
		What's happening?
		Look, this is wherever you stand on the political spectrum, this will change.
		Americans, we write the ship.
		We usually do.
		We're going to hit some bumps along the way.
		But bottom line is, there's no other country like this one.
		And there's no other form of government and democracy as warted as it is that's better than this one.
		And so I think we just keep doing what we do.
		We vote however you vote, vote in whatever way you vote.
		It doesn't matter.
		We just need to be involved.
		We need to stay involved.
		But he would be raising hell.
		You can almost picture the thunderous speeches.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		One quick story he would tell about with Senator Kennedy, where he would, there was an audience of visitors in the upper part of the chamber, and he would tell the story about how he went over to Ted Kennedy and said, let's give him a show.
kelly odonnell ▲ ● ▼		And they had a vigorous debate from two different points of view on an issue.
unidentified		Another question.
		Don't hold back.
		You know, I would say one thing, too, to her question, is none of this should be personal.
		Politics doesn't work with personal.
		So making this personal, making about the person somehow is bad because they believe in a certain way is not helpful at all.
		And so I would encourage everyone to just remind yourself that personalizing politics is not right.
		We're better than that, and our form of government is better than that.
		Now, that's a hard lesson from a political family to not have it be personal.
		That's a tough one.
Accessing Capital for Manufacturers 00:13:36
unidentified		Anybody?
		Okay.
		Well, let me say we've solved the world's problems.
		It is certainly a challenging portfolio that you have, and we are glad you are in the arena.
		Thank you so much for your time.
		Thank you.
		Thank you all.
		Thank you.
		We are live in Sedona, Arizona, where members of Congress have gathered at the McCain Institute Forum.
		The next conversation is on the topic of energy and trade.
		During this break, we'll show you Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Senator Joni Ernst, and Representative Roger Williams announcing new legislation that would double the amount of loans and loan guarantees available through the Federal Small Business Administration from $5 million to $10 million.
		Thank you.
kelly loeffler ▲ ● ▼		Good afternoon.
		Thanks for coming out.
		Without further ado, we'll get started.
		And it is wonderful to be here today alongside Chairman Williams and Chair Ernst to take a major step forward to rebuild American manufacturing.
		On Liberation Day, President Trump made a commitment to stand with American workers, rebuild our industrial base and our domestic supply chains, and it is already restoring our national strength.
		Just one month later, 75 countries are at the negotiating table restoring fair trade.
		And this administration is taking more steps to supercharge manufacturing.
		Today, Chairman Williams and Chair Ernst will introduce a new and bipartisan bill that will double the SBA's maximum loan size for small manufacturers who represent 99% of all manufacturers across the United States.
		The Made in America Manufacturing Finance Act of 2025 will help accelerate the return to Made in America, empowering small manufacturers with new capital for expansion and hiring.
		It means that we will accelerate production.
		It means we are expanding the blue collar boom into the new collar boom with advanced manufacturing and millions of great jobs across communities that have been left behind.
		Our small businesses will be at the heart of restoring American industry, helping to restore our economy, and reduce our reliance on foreign advocacy like the Chinese Communist Party.
		Thank you to President Trump.
		We are ending the tragic economic experiment over the last 30 years that hollowed out our communities, cost us millions and millions of jobs, and closed down 70,000 factories.
		It's a new day.
		And at the SBA, we see the momentum.
		In President Trump's first 100 days, we've seen a 74% increase in manufacturing loans to small businesses.
		That represents about 100 manufacturing loans approved each and every week during his term so far.
		Now with a level playing field, our manufacturers will grow.
		And we're helping them with more capital to fuel a historic comeback.
		On behalf of the SBA, I want to thank Chairman Williams and Chair Ernst for championing this bipartisan legislation.
		And we are so grateful to President Trump for putting the American worker at the heart of his agenda.
		By working with Congress, this administration will restore made in the USA and put America's small business first.
		Now I'm proud to introduce to you my good friend and chairman of the House Small Business Committee, Roger Williams.
unidentified		Well, thank you very much.
		And I want to also say thank you to Administrator Leffler for your leadership and Senator Ernst, who I work with and besides working with friends.
		And this is going to be a great partnership right here.
		And being a small business owner myself, being a Main Street employer, I can't think of a better time to be involved in our business and start a business.
		And I want to say thank you again to our leadership.
		I want to thank this is going to be an opportunity to drive the America First Agenda and Main Street America again.
		President Trump gets it.
		We're lucky to have him as our leader.
		And I think that none of us have the idea how good this economy is going to be.
		And the SBA is going to have a large part in it.
		This benefits of this bill will advance the President's America First agenda.
		It will support SBA's Made in America manufacturing initiative, as we've heard, and strengthens the SBA's ability to support modern small manufacturers' steep capital requirements.
		When you travel around the country, I think we all agree that small business, one of the things that they're concerned about is access to capital.
		This is going to do a lot to fix that.
		They're going to have a chance to modernize their equipment.
		They're going to expand their operations.
		Their workforce development is going to grow.
		We're going to put more people to work, more taxpayers, more tax revenue.
		And the supply chain is going to be better.
		The supply chain will come from right here in America, which is going to be fantastic.
		So this whole thing supports good paying jobs.
		It supports good people.
		It supports capitalism.
		It supports entrepreneurship.
		The idea that you can take risk in America and get reward again is back.
		And that's what this country has always offered through the years, and it always will.
		So I want to just say that it's going to be great working with Senator Ernst and Administrator Loffler.
		We're going to do great things.
		I'm not a pilot, but I know my pilots always talk about CAVU, Seed and Invisibility Unlimited.
		I think that's where we are in America.
		So I'm looking forward to it.
		And I want to say God bless My two friends here, and God bless Main Street American.
		God bless President Trump and the greatest country in the world, America.
joni ernst ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Thanks, Roger.
		Thank you so much, Chairman.
		Thank you all for being here today.
		I am so proud to join with President Donald J. Trump, Administrator Loffler, and of course, my dear friend and baseball coach, Roger Williams.
		Thank you, Chair, very much.
		We are unleashing American production and we are supporting our small businesses.
		So I am the very proud daughter of an Iowa farmer and small business owner, and we have already seen a domestic whoa, and there go my talking points.
		But thanks, Palmer.
		So we have, thanks, Chair.
		You weren't quick enough.
		That's why we have young staff members.
unidentified		I was getting it in my ear.
joni ernst ▲ ● ▼		Well, thanks, everyone.
		We have already seen a domestic manufacturing explosion under President Donald J. Trump in Iowa and all across the United States.
		Since he took office, as Administrator Loffler has said, the SBA has reported a 74% surge in manufacturing loans.
		Meanwhile, Administrator Loffler has restored financial responsibility to SBA's loan programs.
		Expansion on Main Street should not be limited by government.
		And that's why our Made in America Manufacturing Finance Act doubles the loan limit from $5 million to $10 million.
		This gives our small manufacturers access to capital, the capital that they need to invest in new equipment and hire new employees.
		Boosting American manufacturing strengthens the economy and our national security, which is something that's very important to all of us, by decreasing our reliance on foreign nations and our adversaries.
		So, you know what, folks?
		Let's make Made in America the norm instead of the exception.
		So, thank you all very much.
		We look forward to taking a few questions.
		Okay, we'll go ahead and open up.
		And yes, sir, thank you.
unidentified		So, if there's a carrot and a stick, this seems sort of like the carrot.
		The tariffs are the stick.
		What sort of, when and if this is passed, what sort of situation do you want with tariffs?
		Do you want deals across the board?
		Are you hoping that some tariffs stick around so that there's further encouragement to invest in the growth?
joni ernst ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely, and I can answer part of that and then I'll toss it over to Administrator Loffler.
		For us, this is the carrot.
		We know that many of our small businesses, small manufacturers, this is for the little guy, not the big guy.
		So, our small manufacturers really need access to capital.
		And in the last administration, we saw Bidenflation, and it drove costs of expanding our businesses up.
		So, doubling the amount of the loans, those individual loans, will make a huge difference.
		It is a carrot to bring manufacturing into the United States.
		So, I'll toss it to Administrator Loffler to speak about the tariffs.
kelly loeffler ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Chair Ernst.
		Small businesses want a level playing field today.
		That's what that is a carrot.
		And what we're doing is using the stick with our allies and adversaries alike who have taken advantage of our country for far too long, who have hollowed out communities that have decimated small businesses, that has shrunk the opportunity set for American workers.
		So we're looking at the tariff and the monetary and the non-monetary tariffs that impact the ability of small businesses to compete on a level playing field globally.
		Essentially for American small businesses, export markets have closed because of the non-tariff and monetary trade barriers.
		So we have to get that back.
		We're very focused on making sure that we're providing the capital so that they can grow.
		And we just talked about 100 manufacturing loans a week in the last 13 weeks.
		The other thing I'll say is tariffs are one part of the economic agenda that President Trump is so effectively executing.
		We're talking tax cuts, deregulation.
		Under Biden, $1.7 trillion in excessive regulation was piled disproportionately on the backs of small businesses and our manufacturers.
		So tariffs are one part of it.
		And taxes, deregulation, ensuring we have a skilled workforce, low energy prices, these are all things that are going to benefit small businesses in the near term and for the long term.
joni ernst ▲ ● ▼		Chairman, did you have any thoughts?
unidentified		Yeah, I want to interject one thing in there just to cut through the fat.
		We talk about tariffs.
		I'm a car dealer.
		So you want to talk about tariffs.
		You're talking to the guy right here.
		I'm not afraid of tariffs.
		I'm aware of tariffs.
		But let me say this, even more important.
		This is for, as you said, the little guy, Main Street America.
		And when I travel all over the country and I talk to people in business like me, they're not talking about tariffs.
		They need access to capital.
		They got the idea.
		They need the capital.
		This bill does that, plus you couple it with cuts, they're going to get, now you're cooking.
		So tariffs are one thing, but most importantly, is this access to capital is the biggest thing we can do for Main Street America.
		Absolutely.
joni ernst ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
unidentified		Instrumental uplift, these manufacturing loans will be larger potentially than any loans SBA has made before.
		Are you taking steps in the Office of Credit Risk Management just from an asset quality standpoint to sort of get ready for this?
		This is present different challenges than SBA has dealt with currently.
kelly loeffler ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely.
		So we have taken a hard look both from a capital access lender perspective, which means we work with our private sector partners.
		Keep in mind, all SBA loans come out through our local lenders across our communities in America.
		About 2,500 banks do a thorough underwriting process and the banks, while these are government-backed loans, the banks would take the first loss.
		So these are loans that meet stringent underwriting standards of any banker.
		And then we've also evaluated our own loan portfolio in terms of how manufacturing loans perform, particularly the larger ones.
		They're some of the very best performing loans because they have assets backing them up and they are typically used for growth.
		And so that's exactly what we're seeing across this country right now.
		We've met with over 250 manufacturers so far and we're just seeing tremendous demand for locally sourced America source products and the consumer has it too.
		The consumer wants to buy made in America and we're going to be continuing to roll out additional initiatives that support onshoring these supply chains that are so critical to our economic and national security.
unidentified		What's your timeline for this and what sort of support are you getting on?
Democratic Sponsorship Confirmed 00:12:21
joni ernst ▲ ● ▼		Yes, absolutely.
		So we have it introduced in the House and in the Senate.
		It is a bipartisan bill in the Senate and I am pleased to say that Senator Chris Coons is my Democratic co-sponsor.
		We will have a Democratic sponsor in the House as well.
		So we anticipate this is something that we all do agree on and it should move very quickly.
		I am hopeful that we can get this over the finish line, get it to the president as soon as possible because this is something that American manufacturers need.
		And again, it's for the small businesses, the small manufacturers, and it will make a difference in bringing back American manufacturing.
		Thank you, everybody.
unidentified		That's coming up.
joni ernst ▲ ● ▼		Thank you so much.
		Thank you.
		Nice.
		Thank you, Skipper.
		Oh, and do you have an announcement about June 11th?
unidentified		Well, June 11th now.
		Getting down to the real important stuff.
		June 11th is our congressional baseball games in place is 1909.
		All right.
		You all need to buy your tickets.
		They went on sale at 1 o'clock.
		And I'm projecting, you can write it down.
		We're going to have 40,000 people there this year to watch the Democrats and Republicans.
		I'm not going to tell you who's going to win, but I think you know who's going to win.
joni ernst ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Kim.
unidentified		Thank you, Coach.
joni ernst ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
joni ernst ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, everybody, for coming.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Good job.
		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		For the next 20 minutes or so, we are in open form.
		We will start with Daniel in Ithaca, New York, line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Daniel.
		Daniel, are you there?
unidentified		Oh, yes, Ham.
joni ernst ▲ ● ▼		Yes, ma'am.
unidentified		What?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Daniel.
		Go ahead.
		You're on.
unidentified		Yeah, I was homeless in D.C.
unidentified		That was Barbara, first star caveat, and I'm my roommate out on the other side of town.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Luann.
		I'm sorry, Lukandu in Chicago, Illinois, line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Likandu.
unidentified		Are you there?
		Yes, good morning.
		I just had one question, one thing I wanted to say about this.
		Like, I don't understand why we're not seeing what the Trump administrator is doing.
		He's not doing nothing for the country.
		He's only doing stuff to make him and his billionaire friends who elected him richer while the other country starving.
		Then for him to say some stuff that we're going to be go through a little transition period where we're going to have a little bit of problem.
		But is any other billionaires going to have any problems like that?
		No.
		So I don't understand this.
		Trump administrators the one.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Lakandu in Chicago.
		Let's talk with Diane in Barberton, Ohio, line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Diane.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning, Channel.
		Okay.
		First of all, I think let's go back to years ago when the government then allowed the open amount of money that came in from the companies that went to China.
		These were rich people who had companies, then got people to work for very little, and so they then in turn got very rich.
		Somehow they transitioned over to the Chinese people and so they became the Americans that went over there became very, very rich.
		Why shouldn't they be the ones that pay for our debt in terms of they made all the money off of that Chinese and yet we're the ones who are having to pay back money that they actually were earning?
		So why wouldn't that help our economy instead of throwing the tariffs on the Chinese?
		And second of all, I want to say that people who are talking about him doing such a good job, he's not.
		He is doing what he thinks we need.
		And we need a strong economy.
		And prices are going still sky high.
		I can tell you right now, I went to the grocery store yesterday.
		Beef alone is $3 more than it was back in December.
		So this idea that prices are going down, they're not.
		When it comes to gasoline, those are still sky high.
		I think it was, I saw 305, 350 in the Northeast Ohio area.
		There are many, many things I can talk about, but we don't have the time.
		So thank you, Tammy.
		And people listen.
		Don't just assume he's doing a good job.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Diane in Ohio.
		Mary in Maine, lying for Independence.
		Hi, Mary.
unidentified		Hi.
		My comment is that, and my question is, could Donald Trump have done what he wanted to do in a legal, kind, respectful way instead of the bullying way he's doing it, instead of making us the laughing stock of the world, instead of making us ashamed to be an American, could he have done what he wanted to do in a respectful and legal way?
		I just want everyone to consider that.
		That's all I have to say.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Mary in Maine.
		Linda in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, lying for Republicans.
		Hi, Linda.
unidentified		Yes, Tammy.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I've been trying so many times.
		And I'm going to go back to everybody made a big deal about COVID and Donald Trump.
		Okay, what about all the people that have died because the Biden administration left all the illegal people in?
		They're complaining about the price it's going to cost.
		What about the cost that it costs to bring these people in and take care of them?
		Also, this is something old.
		The Democrats always say Donald Trump's a rapist.
		Well, what was Clinton in the White House with his wife and his child there with the interns?
		They forget about that.
		And we wouldn't even be talking about immigration if they wouldn't have left all these people in.
		Also, nobody protested when Biden signed the thing where all the frackers lost their job over 11,000 people.
		Second of all, what about the people that were government people that got let go because they wouldn't take the shot?
		Where's my body?
		My choice.
		It's all confusing to me.
		I know Donald Trump's not perfect, but I'm sure the Biden administration was more imperfect because we never even saw a man.
		We see Donald Trump constantly, like it or not.
		So that's all I got to say.
		And thank you.
		Thank you, Tammy.
		And you do a great job.
		Thank you very much.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And that was Linda in Pennsylvania.
		A look ahead next week.
		A headline from The Hill, Canadian Prime Minister says he'll visit the White House on Tuesday.
		It says that Canada's newly elected Prime Minister, Mark Carney, said he will visit the White House on Tuesday for a meeting with President Trump.
		It says that the meeting comes in the wake of tariffs that Trump has imposed on Canada and the president's proposal for the nation to merge with the U.S. Something Kearney earlier this week said isn't ever going to happen.
		It was during Prime Minister Kearney's first news conference after winning the election that he was asked about Canada becoming the 51st state.
		Here's a clip from that event.
unidentified		In your second call with the president, did Mr. Trump outright say or insinuate at any point that Canada should become the 51st state?
		He did not.
		All right.
		We've heard Mr. Trump on April 23rd and his surrogates throughout the final days of the campaign reiterate the idea that they believe Canada should become the 51st state on the campaign trail.
		You said on multiple.
		We're going to leave this here.
		You can finish watching anytime online at c-span.org or on the C-SPAN Now mobile app.
		We go live now to Sedona, Arizona, where members of Congress have gathered at the McCain Institute for conversations about the Russia-Ukraine war, cybersecurity, foreign aid, and international trade.
		This is live coverage on C- It's a great state remains to the state of Arizona and to the McCain Institute.
		So I'm so glad that we were able to come out ahead just right after that video appeared.
		It makes me actually want to tell you a John McCain story, and I'm going to put you on the spot too, Congressman, and tell a McCain story because you have such a good relationship with him going back so many years.
		I interviewed Senator John McCain for a book that I wrote called Great Dads back in 1999.
		And I interviewed well-known Americans about lessons they learned from their fathers.
		I interviewed John McCain and Donald Trump, even is in that book.
		But I think back to the 2008 campaign that I covered.
		And after Senator McCain won the New Hampshire primary, it was on to Michigan.
		And Michigan was a state in which if he won Michigan, he essentially would have killed Romney's candidacy.
		That was the plan.
		Win Michigan and on to the nomination.
		And he did an event that he did so often, those town hall events when you take a question literally from everybody there.
		Wouldn't leave until he was finished taking questions from anybody.
		And afterwards, we were told he was going to do a media availability.
		So we all gathered semicircle around Senator McCain.
		And I asked the senator a question about his status in the state in terms of polling.
		And polling showed that he was not doing well.
		He was trailing Governor Romney.
		And I asked him the question, how can you win given that you're trailing in every poll that I've seen?
		And he looked at me, he sized me up.
		And if you can imagine John McCain doing this, he sized me up and he says, he begins his answer by saying, well, my well-quaffed friend.
		That's John McCain.
		And from there, I laughed just like you did.
		Such a great person.
		Congressman, do you want to follow up by telling a nice story about your times with the senator?
		Where do I start?
		Many, many, many years, three years, and very odd for me to be here, especially as a former staffer with all former staffers here.
		What Senator McCain is saying right now is one senator makes sense, another senator makes sense.
		Goldman, what's that jerk doing there?
		Definitely, he would be saying that.
		And by the way, Dupree, he's the one who won New Hampshire for Senator McCain.
		No, just, I mean, we can go into many, many stories, but I mean, let's get on with the panel.
		That's terrific.
		Yeah, we have such a broad topic.
		I mean, we're talking about trade.
		We're talking about energy, and I thought I'd divide it up.
		Speaking first about trade, we have such a nice panel, such a great panel.
		Senator Gallego, of course, new to the U.S. Senate, but not new to Congress, served his district in the Phoenix area.
		Of course, we have a freshman U.S. Congressman in Craig Goldman and the senior senator from Rhode Island in Senator Whitehouse.
Tariffs and Their Impact 00:04:54
unidentified		And I can't think of a better panel for us.
		So let me start by asking you, Senator Whitehouse, about tariffs, because that has just gotten so much attention.
		No matter where you are, I hear it just from the populace at large because they realize, I think they acknowledge that this is going to be an issue that could impact them in a very everyday way in terms of the things that they purchase at the supermarket, maybe even filling up their gas tank.
		President Trump says that tariffs are necessary because the U.S. has been treated unfairly.
		They've been treated unfairly by our trading partners.
		Do you subscribe to that point of view?
		And why isn't the idea of imposing tariffs the right way to respond to that?
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'll talk about one tariff that I'm a big supporter of, and that's the, and it's very relevant to energy because it's the carbon border tariff.
		The EU already has one.
		It's called the CBAM carbon border adjustment mechanism.
		The new government just elected in Australia is likely to join.
		I would not be the least bit surprised if Canada were to join.
		The EU and the UK are already finalizing their joinder.
		So you'd have a combined market of EU, UK, Australia, and Canada where you would be tariffed on all your imports if you were more carbon intense than those economies and didn't have the requisite internal measures to bring down carbon pollution.
		So since we're on energy, that's the one I'll focus on.
		It's happening right now.
		It's vitally important.
		You can't talk about energy without talking about climate, and you can't talk about climate without understanding that we are heading into a financial calamity unlike anything since the Great Depression.
		And we see it coming.
		It's going to be the most predicted financial cataclysm in financial history.
		It's like seeing the iceberg and the Titanic not changing course.
		And the way it plays out, according to the chief economist for Freddie Mac, is that the weather becomes worse and more dangerous and more unpredictable, which makes the insurance model impossible to deploy in a lot of different areas, which then closes down real estate because you can't get mortgages where you can't get insurance.
		And when you can't get mortgages, property values fall dramatically.
		And according to the chief economist for Freddie Mac, that takes you into a 2008-style new recession.
		That was just on coastal property values.
		Now wildfires are even more perhaps significant.
		So we're looking at a very, very dangerous proposition.
		And it's not just the chief economist of Freddie Mac making the warnings.
		The head of the Federal Reserve was in the other day in the banking committee and said, 10 to 15 years, regions of the United States, no more mortgages.
		Economist magazine, $25 trillion hit expected to the world's largest asset class, the global real estate market.
		The International Financial Stability Board warning the world's banking system that with the loss of mortgage revenue and with the loss of property values changing LTV ratios and creating insolvencies, banks have to buckle up and get ready for the storm ahead.
		So the tariffs create an immediate storm.
		They go straight through to consumer prices.
		They hit people in their pocketbooks.
		They're ill-advised as a general rash act.
		But they can also be focused intelligently.
		And I think the carbon border adjustment mechanism is now really the remaining narrow avenue we have for a pathway to climate safety.
		So getting behind that is important.
		And big kudos to Bill Cassidy, who sat on the stage with me before here, and Lindsey Graham, who has been at this place innumerable times for doing their own Republican carbon border tariff bill, which we begin negotiations on with my carbon border tariff bill to get something done that's bipartisan and effective.
unidentified		Senator Gallego, let me ask you a question that picks up on Senator Whitehouse's answer.
Tariffs And Backstabbing 00:04:16
unidentified		Tariffs, did they, in your view, level the playing field?
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		I think, I mean, back to the question, what is he even really saying?
		Unfair versus fair.
		That's not how we decide any type of tariff policy or any type of economic policy.
		So the fact that we're trying to rationalize the stupidity is the first problem.
		Let's be honest, what's what he's doing?
		It's utter chaos out there.
		I was just in Germany meeting with our ministers out there, their finance minister.
		They feel like we basically have just stabbed them in the back.
		For years, the United States policy has been telling Germany, like, hey, we don't want you to be entirely dependent on China.
		We don't want you to be your major expert to be China.
		We want you to be close to us.
		For many years, I would travel actually to Europe, encouraging our European allies and friends to not integrate their communication system with Huawei and a bunch of other very intensely government-run Chinese companies.
		And they, to be good friends of ours, they did it.
		Now they're telling me, and this European minister was telling me, like, I have CEOs in Germany who are telling me that we're dying.
		I'm going to have to lay off people.
		And why won't I go and now do work with China when your best friend, the United States, has now turned this around?
		There is no logic to this whatsoever.
		You know, when we have to fight in certain areas with tariff policy, we have to do it in a smart way.
		Because right now, this is dumb.
		And when it comes to the everyday person, they're going to feel it right away.
		So I have a child come in June 12th.
		So right now, I'm in nesting mode.
		More importantly, my wife is in nesting mode.
		And so we are buying everything right now.
		And as I'm putting together that nursery, it all says made in China.
		And already, I've already seen some of those prices go up.
		I was talking to the store that we get our carriages, we get our kids from.
		And she's already told me, Ruben, once I'm out, everything the storm is out, you better go to Amazon.
		Once they're out, we're done.
		So the American public is going to feel it much sooner than people think.
		And I don't think Donald Trump understands it.
		I don't think Donald Trump has ever put a freaking nursery together in his whole life.
		And I think he's going to end up, there's going to be a huge, huge backlash from the actual voter because they expect low-priced goods on demand, and they're not going to understand this big macro idea that if it is a macro idea that Trump wants, because it's just not going to happen.
		And this overall idea, by the way, that somehow we're going to get these businesses back, who's going to work those jobs?
		I'm a first-generation Latino.
		My dad was born in Mexico.
		My mom was born in Colombia.
		Growing up, I worked all the factory jobs.
		I worked in construction.
		I worked everything else like that.
		And I know how hard those jobs are.
		Even if we were able to get those jobs back by the time you build the factory, get the workers, and especially with this immigration, by the way, non-immigration program that we have, we're not even going to have the capability to actually meet the demand.
		So all we're doing is increasing the cost on working class people without any thought to how this is going to affect them.
		And when it will finally affect is when your first TJ Max closes down, your targets start closing down, when you start seeing Single parent women with children being fired first because they're the first ones to go when retail goes down.
		And that's when you're going to actually start hearing a lot of complaints from the voter.
		And they're not going to care about this idea that we're trying to bring something back that I don't think is actually able to be brought back.
unidentified		Congressman Goldman, you come from a district, Fort Worth, Texas, supportive of President Trump.
		President Trump says there will be short-term pain.
		He calls it interruptions.
		And the big question is: how patient is the American public?
		What's your view on that?
		Well, I mean, first of all, I think we need to be very clear that, one, I'm a former Phil Graham staffer as well.
Art of the Dealmaker 00:15:20
unidentified		And those of you that thought Phil Graham went away, you now see that he's alive and well still, riding an op-ed on tariffs in the Wall Street Journal.
		He's speaking out publicly that he's a free trader.
		And so I grew up understanding that as well.
		I think we also need to realize that we're talking about the man who wrote the art of the deal.
		And President Trump is a dealmaker.
		And I think he's brought awareness to a lot of countries that have taken advantage of us, frankly.
		And while we are free traders, we also want fair trade.
		And I think that's hopefully where we are in that this is a short-term thing and we get more fair trade as well as free trade.
		Now, China is America's third largest trading partner, Senator Whitehouse.
		As it relates to the trade war that we see now playing out with China, in your view, who has the upper hand?
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think Xi probably thinks that he does.
		I don't know whether that's accurate or not, but I think they're exuding a fair amount of confidence.
		I think they believe that their population can't hold their breath longer than ours in terms of dealing with the immediate dislocations and cost increases and disruptions that are going to be caused.
		And I think they probably look at the trade war in the context of extending China's reach globally in a whole bunch of different ways.
		So it's not just between the two of us.
		They're going to look to this issue to find leverage in all the areas where they have markets.
		And frankly, as Rubin pointed out, we kind of look like jerks now.
		And so it gives China, to a lesser degree, Russia, because of their appalling behavior in Ukraine, but it gives our rivals a chance to move into areas and say, actually, we're the nice guys here.
		The Chinese were the sensible voices at the meeting about the next climate cop in Brazil with all of the heads of state involved.
		The United States was not even invited.
		That's not a good place for us to be.
unidentified		What are the long-term implications, Senator Gallego, of a trade war with China?
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		Well, the long-term implications is that in terms of our geopolitical alliances, they start breaking down.
		And here's why.
		If we wanted to have this fight, first of all, look, I'm a 5'7 guy.
		I try not to fight everyone at the same time.
		If I have to fight somebody, I pick one fight.
		And I'm a Marine, so I bring friends, right?
		If we were going to go against China, we don't have a trade war against China, why not align ourselves with people that we have same values with and make sure we are copacetic so that way we can go to China and say, listen, we really don't like that you're dumping steel in our country.
		We don't like your wages are artificially low and the working class is hard to behind that.
		And when we would have the European Union economy, North American economy together, then we have more leverage.
		Instead, what we decided to do, we decided to be the drunk guy at the bar, just start punching everybody.
		And then we're surprised that this is coming back to us.
		So, in the long run, I think we end up losing a lot of trust and alliances, not just obviously with China.
		I think that is something we need to fight.
		We need to fight smartly.
		But look, I'm hearing it not just from there.
		In Latin America, speaking to some of our trading partners in Latin America, they're not looking at China for their major markets or other countries because they wanted to be with the United States.
		They felt comfortable with the United States.
		But now their businessmen are saying that they can't actually stand the volatility of our relationship.
		They're basically calling us toxic X right now, right?
		And if that continues, we're going to see ourselves not be a trusted partner, both on the economic side, on the national security side.
		You know, one of the scariest things I heard about a month ago was the Prime Minister of Singapore questioning whether they should realign themselves closer to China.
		You know, this is a country that is very, very strategically placed that we share a lot of very, very sophisticated and trusted intelligence with because we are part of our idea of our capacity to defend ourselves in the Asian Pacific theater.
		And right now, they are questioning about whether it was worthwhile to stay with us.
		This is all interconnected.
		And if we don't handle this well, and if we don't pivot well against China and end up somehow winning this war, this trade war, I think it's going to deteriorate our capability to have strong allies, strong friends, and really set the rules of the road of economic order across the globe.
unidentified		What about that, Congressman?
		I don't know if you look at the calendar like I do.
		It's been a month and a day since Liberation Day.
		I was in the Rose Garden when the president made that big announcement of reciprocal tariffs.
		They're on a 90-day hold.
		Today, tariffs went into effect for auto parts.
		Now there's a 25% tariff on foreign auto parts being implemented.
		And picking up on what Senator Gallego just said, why not partner with our allies in going up against China?
		And let me ask you another question, and that is what the senator also mentioned about China.
		Do they fill the void?
		You know, after Liberation Day, President Xi, he did a tour of Asia, and he, in that tour, went to all of these countries that are our trading partners and made the pitch: you're going to get tariffed by the U.S. Why don't you have more trade with China and we won't implement those tariffs?
		Well, let's be very clear also.
		Everything moving forward is speculation, right?
		All these so-called experts who are speculating what will happen a month from now, six months from now, a year from now, if we're still in this trade war.
		I don't believe we will be.
		Again, it's nothing that President Trump didn't say in the campaign as far as taking action currently.
		Again, I'll reiterate that you're talking about the man who wrote the art of the deal.
		So I don't think we'll be in this situation, again, speculating.
		Look, I want President Trump to succeed.
		Hopefully, everybody in this room does.
		It's good for America.
		It's good for the country.
		I want free and fair trade.
		We obviously don't have it now.
		We've shed the light on that that we don't.
		And hopefully, here in the future, in the very short term, we do.
		Can I just like say, yeah, go ahead.
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		He wrote, co-wrote the art of the deal, number one.
		Number two, it's not like it's the wealth of nations, okay?
		Like, come on.
		He's literally talking about like land swaps in like Manhattan versus the Queens.
		We're talking about an economic stabilizer that has existed since Bretton Woods that has brought billions of people out of poverty, billions of people out of poverty, stabilize, stabilize the world to the point where we have such less conflicts that we have ever seen in modern civilization.
		But none of that is going to be found in the art of the deal, co-written by somebody else.
		Come on, let's be Donald Trump, does not write anything.
		Donald Trump does not read.
		Do we really think he wrote the art of the deal?
		And if that's the case, if you don't believe that, then why are we saying like everything that we understand about a modern economic system?
		Trust the fact that he wrote this book and therefore he is smart enough to deal with the intricacies of this that could unravel and hurt billions of people.
unidentified		Okay, that's a problem.
		I'm not out of it.
		Has he not been a dealmaker his entire life?
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		He bankrupted casinos.
unidentified		Has he been a deal maker his entire life?
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		A bad deal maker.
unidentified		He bankrupted casinos.
unidentified		Let me let me pick up our copy.
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		I'll be more subtle.
unidentified		Now, the other day, the president is in the Oval Office and he's essentially saying that the tariffs are having their intended effect.
		He said the Chinese container ships are turning around.
		And from the president's perspective, that's a good thing that the Chinese container ships are turning around.
		Senator Whitehouse, is that a good thing when they're turning around, those goods are not getting to U.S. ports, and there's no tariffs that we can derive if those container ships actually make it to U.S. ports?
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there was an economist the other day who said, you know, the confusion and upheaval around tariffs is actually a tariff itself.
		It's just the stupidest of tariffs because you get no revenue from it.
		And turning around ships that never come here means A, you don't get the tariff revenue.
		It also means that there's a gap somewhere on the shelf of the Walmart or the Target or wherever those goods were destined to be.
		Or there's a shop in Rhode Island that is waiting for a part for a machine that they need to run their process, and that part doesn't come.
		And those gaps, applied wildly and randomly throughout the economy, then I think begin to cascade.
		So I don't think it's a good thing that they're turning around at all.
unidentified		Congressman, I wanted to ask you about the president and his pledge to bring manufacturing jobs back to America.
		I was in about two weeks ago, I was in the Roosevelt room at the White House, and there was a big announcement that the President made.
		It was the CEO of Hyundai that had come to the White House.
		And Hyundai was announcing that it's going to build a steel mill in southern Louisiana.
		It will create 1,500 new jobs, but those jobs and that steel mill won't actually be operating until 2029.
		That's a long way away for this deal that he's trying to put in place.
		What's your view about the president's pledge to bring those manufacturing jobs back to the American?
		We're building major manufacturing in Texas, too, as a result of it, as well.
		So I'm all for it.
		Look, the more jobs we can develop here in America, the more jobs we can develop in Texas, I'm all for it.
		And what, yeah, they're not short term, they're not six months a year from now.
		But again, long term is going to benefit our country, not just for the short term, but for the long term as well.
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		Well, a lot of the jobs that we're looking at came out of the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure bill.
		That's actually happening now in real time.
		We also saw last year 95% of the new additions to the grid were solar, wind, and battery.
		95% of everything that went on the American grid.
		So when you take on the Inflation Reduction Act, when you take on those tax credits and when you attack renewable energy, pretending that solar and wind energy aren't even energy, you're taking a direct hit at very immediate things that are going on in the economy that are American construction, that are American manufacturing, that are supporting the American economy.
		So you might say that you'll have some jobs in a factory maybe nine years from now, but what's happening right now is that the leading additions to the energy sector are all being cut down by Trump deliberately.
		And a lot of the construction and factory and so forth that's been developed is being attacked through his attacks on the spending and that was authorized during Biden's term.
		So, you know, it's kind of, I'll kick you in the face right now, but don't worry, nine years from now, if somebody else will get a job, that's not a good strategy politically.
unidentified		Senator Gallego, you mentioned your trip to Germany.
unidentified		How have the president's trade policies impacted our relationships with the European Union, with Canada, with Mexico?
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		So talking to Mexico, a lot of countries of the European Union, UK also, not so much the Canadians, the Taiwanese, and then the individual businesses there, they really feel betrayed, right?
		You know, I'll start point, you know, in Germany, you know, we've asked them to do a couple of things prior to Donald Trump here about investing in manufacturing in the United States.
		We've also asked them to step up in Ukraine, which they have.
		You know, we asked them to make sure that they aren't doing too much co-production and co-mingling with China.
		They did that.
		You know, if you look at South America and Latin America, we've also asked them to make sure that we're their major importer.
		A good example, Colombia, imports most of their equipment from the United States, John Deere, tractors, everything else of that nature, same with Mexico.
		Colombia, biggest import from us is soy.
		They're right next to Brazil.
		There's no reason why they can't just get it from Brazil.
		They get it from us because we tell them to do it.
		Now, talking to Colombian businessmen, they're saying that I don't know if I want to deal with this every year, every time the president feels like he's got something in his system that he's going to just arbitrarily put a tariff on.
		And so now they're looking at other markets.
		In the UK, talking to a lot of parliamentarians, they're just confused.
		We're like your cousins.
		We would have worked with you.
		We would have figured this out together.
		You share all your special intelligence with us, but yet you didn't want to give us a heads up of how we could work together.
		And it's creating a situation where they first don't believe us and trust us when it comes to our economic alliances.
		Then it's moving on to the kind of security alliances.
		And again, back to the bigger, grander things, like it's a multipolar world, right?
		And in that multipolar world, I think it's the autocrats, which is you're going to see kind of like with Russia and China and the little minions around them.
		And then it's the United States and what I would call kind of our traditional Western economic values, us, the EU, North American countries, South American countries that are democratic.
		And no matter what, China still has a big population pool.
		We need to be aligned and supportive of each other in order for us to really have good leverage on China going forward.
		Because if we don't, in the long run, they have the numbers.
		They have the numbers.
		The only way we can actually beat that Chinese economy is with the North American economy plus the EU economy and friends.
Nuclear vs. Coal Permits 00:11:34
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		And that's how we win in the long run.
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		Because if not, we just don't have the mass to do it.
unidentified		As I said, this is a really broad topic that we have here.
		Let's turn to energy.
		Senator Whitehouse, you are the ranking member of the EPW committee in the U.S. Senate.
		You're one of the Senate's environmental champions.
		What's wrong from your perspective with the president's priority of pursuing increases in domestic energy production, focusing on oil, on natural gas, on coal?
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's a lot that's wrong with it.
		First of all, if you don't combine that with pollution controls, then you're feeding into the climate disaster that turns into the insurance disaster, that turns into the real estate disaster, that turns into major recession.
		I mean, even the Home Mortgage Association that lobbies in Washington is giving warnings about where we're headed.
		So you don't want to feed into that.
		You are also, again, hitting in the face the industries that are really performing right now.
		When 95% of what goes onto the grid new is solar, wind, and battery, and you go and punch those industries, you end up punching yourself.
		It's a dumb thing to do.
		And third, there's the very long-standing warning about the carbon bubble bursting.
		And when suddenly, let's say, OPEC nations decide they're going to take a run for the exits and just sell at cost plus a penny and get their product out while there's still a market for their product.
		What happens to the U.S. fossil fuel industry?
		It gets wiped out.
		There's no circumstances under which we can compete on price with low-cost nations like Saudi.
		So it's a highly vulnerable market sector for us to be in in the first place, with a well-predicted prospect of a rush for the exits down to marginal cost plus a penny, wiping out our entire sector.
		And that's where you get into all the issues about lost infrastructure and massive financial upheaval.
		So is that going to happen?
		I don't know.
		Is it a real risk that it happens?
		Yes, because it has been widely, widely, widely predicted.
		So you're leading into a very dangerous place.
		And it's very hard to believe that these are decisions that are being made in good faith when you look at the back and forth with political funding and political wheeler dealering between the industry and Trump himself and the Trump administration.
unidentified		Congressman from Texas, I gather you disagree with that.
		I don't disagree, but can I ask you a question?
		Senator, do you think we're cleaner and greener in the United States than we ever have been in the history of our country?
		Yeah, I agree.
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		But the problem is that that's not the test.
		That's not the test.
		That's not the test.
		The test is we've got to leave a livable planet for our children, our grandchildren, and everybody knows how that works.
unidentified		100%.
		I believe we're cleaner and greener than we ever have been in our country's history.
		The problem is China and India, who are opening a coal plant every single day, is not helping the climate.
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		Which is where that carbon border tariff becomes so important, because China will pay a considerably higher tariff to the EU, to the UK, than we will.
		Frankly, if that CBAM goes into effect and we continue to sit on our rear ends and do nothing serious to solve the climate problem, we still win economically Because the margin between the tariff to China and the tariff to us is sufficient to actually move manufacturing and industrial activity back to the United States.
		So I'm a huge fan of the CBAM.
		Everybody in America should know that word.
		We cannot afford to lose that.
		And frankly, we should be a part of it.
		And if Cassidy and Graham and myself and others are successful, we will be.
unidentified		Let me ask you a question that I hope you can answer relatively quickly because our time is running down.
		And it has to do with Russia, the Russia energy sector.
		How can the U.S. put more pressure on Russia's energy sector, which of course funds the war in Ukraine?
		I'll start with you, Senator.
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		Well, two things.
		Number one, we need to export as much LNG as we can to Europe.
		Look, there's Europe, Germany specifically screwed up by closing down all of their nuclear power plants.
		In the meantime, I would rather them be buying LNG from us than from Russia, right?
		So this is like either or.
		Secondarily, we need to do massive investments in nuclear, both domestically and internationally.
		When I was in Slovakia talking to the prime minister, one of the things I was trying to convince the prime minister to do is to buy U.S.-made SMRs from Westinghouse instead of Russians.
		And the Prime Minister seemed to be more akin to staying with us, but he made it very clear.
		It's like, I have nine, is that them?
unidentified		They're marching in.
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		He's like, I have nine nuclear power plants that are Russian-based.
		I have workers that know how to work Russian power plants.
		Why would I buy this?
		And I said, well, look, I think we're going to have a more integrated future between the European Union and the United States.
		And this is one of those steps.
		If we can use our power of innovation to export SMR, small module reactors, we can really make Europe independent from Russian carbon.
		And if you make Western Europe independent for Russian carbon, Russia is poor.
		If they're poor, they can't wage these wars.
		And for going back to China and India, I mean, the one thing that we aren't doing, we could have this conversation about coal versus not coal or whatever it is.
		We're going to hit a problem with the growth of AI in this country that it doesn't matter how much coal you can bring in.
		It's just not going to meet the demand.
		And same with all those other countries.
		So we should be trying to share as much U.S. innovation technology across the globe so we could employ our engineers, employ as many workers all around the world, and at the same time, be able to bring down the cost of energy as well as reducing the carbon footprint.
		Because if you look at the numbers, and I see a couple of APS and SRP guys around here, I see they're hiding out.
		They'll tell you, I mean, even in Arizona, we're going to hit a bubble because we have the trifecta here since it's Derby Day.
		We have, number one, a growth of population.
		We have 500 people moving here a day, and they all like air conditioning.
		Number two, we have high-end manufacturing, such as our chips plants.
		And number three, we have AI data warehouses.
		In order for us to meet all that, we can build as much as we can in terms of gas and everything else like that.
		If we don't go nuclear, we're going to have big problems here and across the country and potentially across the world.
unidentified		Two big topics that we have here in this session.
unidentified		Who's got a question for this great panel that we have here?
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		All the questions coming up, I'd give a really short answer to your question, which is go a lot harder at Russian shipping.
unidentified		Okay.
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		We've allowed them to get a lot of money.
unidentified		Can I say we've done a complete 180 in energy policy from one administration to the other?
		That's right.
		The Biden administration literally shut down LNG exports.
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		Yes, that was stupid.
unidentified		Thanks for admitting.
		Anyone brought up is right.
		Do I see a question?
		Anybody have a question?
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		Senator Klobuchar is vindicating that we need to go a lot harder.
unidentified		There you go.
		Well, let me wrap it up with this question for each of you.
		We have a Republican, we have two Democratic senators on this panel.
		Where is there room for bipartisan legislation as it relates to energy policy?
		Something that can get through.
		Permitting reform.
		Go ahead, Senator Whitehouse first.
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		Permitting reform.
		Senator Capito and I have already detailed our staff directors to sit down with Senator Heinrich and Senator Lee's staff directors and start framing out what a permitting reform bill would look like.
		All four corners are interested and eager to proceed and have it succeed.
		And what I've told Senator Capito is that I want to do this.
		I also want to do a big highway bill.
		I also want to do a big water bill all through EPW.
		We can't do any of that until the Trump administration knocks it off with the fake freezes.
ruben gallego ▲ ● ▼		Guess true.
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		And until we get some assurances that if we do pass a big, beautiful bipartisan bill, the Trump administration will actually faithfully execute the law as we wrote it and not just cherry pick the stuff that his donors like and leave the rest by the wayside.
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		And let's start working on the bills in the meantime, but know that the day has to come when we've got to clear the freezes and when we've got to have a proper understanding that faithful execution of the laws in the U.S. Constitution actually means faithfully executing the laws.
unidentified		And Congressman Goldman, you know, you're from the House.
		Give me the perspective of the Republican-led House of Representatives.
		Well, Senator Gallego and I both were house trained, not only in our state houses, but also federally.
		But I'm brand new to the U.S. Congress, so just getting newly house trained at that level.
		Permitting form, thankfully, now is a hot topic, and everybody seems to be agreement on that finally.
		It took some time to get some people there.
		Look, we have to, we'll have an open discussion about whether continue to subsidize building wind and solar is the right thing to do.
		It is in Texas.
		I'm not saying it's bad.
		We need solar and wind in Texas.
		They're a huge part of our grid.
		For those of you who don't know, we have our own grid in Texas.
		We're not part of FERC.
		The coal plants, as we're shuttering coal plants across this nation, is that the right thing to do as we need more energy when we're not ready and we don't have more energy online right now.
		Nuclear, I think, bipartisan now.
		Everyone's saying that's the way to go.
		The small nuclear modules being built, one in Texas, a joint program between the University of Texas and Texas AM, believe it or not, they actually came together.
		I was bipartisanship.
		Yeah, that's true, bipartisanship.
		I was chair of the energy committee in the Texas State House and the speaker who makes all appointments to all committees.
		But the most progressive, most liberal member on my committee, and I said, Speaker, why do you do that?
		And he goes, just sit there, wait, and watch.
		And sure enough, he was right, because I had a nuclear panel.
		And this most progressive liberal member of the Texas State House says, that's the most interesting discussion we've ever had.
		I was anti-nuclear before that panel.
		I'm pro-nuclear now.
		So that, in my opinion, is a future.
		But the small modules.
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		I'll agree to that.
		I've been the lead Democrat on all the nuclear reform bills, and there's more room to make more progress there.
		I would say that when you're talking about subsidies, you can't overlook the negative externalities that fossil fuel gets to get away with their pollute-for-free business model, which amount to $700 billion a year in the U.S., according to the International Monetary Fund, which is not exactly a green group.
$700 Billion Subsidy Discussion 00:00:48
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		So be careful about using the word subsidy when you've got an industry that's sitting on a $700 billion annual subsidy in the form of free negative externalities.
unidentified		We covered so much ground on this panel.
		I thank the panel.
		You're all terrific, and I thank you for listening.
		I appreciate it.
		Great job, guys.
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Great job.
sheldon whitehouse ▲ ● ▼		Nice job.
unidentified		Good job.
		Monday, a conversation between Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Milken Institute Chair Michael Milken about the state of the global economy.
		You can watch that discussion live at 11 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.

Chapters

00:00:00 Soft Power's Role in Food Security
00:15:05 Efforts in Gaza
00:25:11 Pope Francis: A Man of Kindness
00:27:19 Celebrate McCain's Legacy
00:37:11 Accessing Capital for Manufacturers
00:50:32 Democratic Sponsorship Confirmed
01:02:38 Tariffs and Their Impact
01:07:17 Tariffs And Backstabbing
01:11:19 Art of the Dealmaker
01:26:24 Nuclear vs. Coal Permits
01:37:59 $700 Billion Subsidy Discussion