| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Today, 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. | ||
| C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Up next, Oklahoma Senator James Langford and former Arizona Senator Kristen Sinema discuss the need for bipartisanship on a variety of current issues facing the country. | ||
| They also talk about the late Senator John McCain and his views on how Republicans and Democrats should approach governing. | ||
| Well, hello, everyone. | ||
| It is great to be back at the Sedona Forum. | ||
| I am so excited to be here today with my good friend, James Langford, who's traveled from Oklahoma to be here with us today. | ||
| And actually, it was pretty easy. | ||
| I think I just texted you and said, do you want to come to Sedona? | ||
| And he said, duh. | ||
| And I said, well, we're going to do the McCain forum. | ||
| And he immediately said yes. | ||
| So I thought we'd kick off with a John McCain story. | ||
| Oh, I'd love to. | ||
| Here we go. | ||
| I'd love to. | ||
| So I got, by the way, good to see everybody. | ||
| I count the Senate now at this point of kind of like we as a country and a world count like pre-COVID and post-COVID on memories. | ||
| We're pre-McCain and post-McCain because the new members that have come in the last couple of cycles will be in the conversation with a John McCain story and they just stare at us like I have no point of reference for that. | ||
| So sad for them. | ||
| It's been very interesting just to be in several of those conversations. | ||
| I do, everybody has John McCain's story, and everyone who served with him had a million on it. | ||
| My favorite of it was a moment where it was John Thune, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and myself were all standing on the Senate floor in a vote series and we're all chit-chatting there just as the vote is going on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And John looks at Lindsay and says, if I had Langford's voice and Thune's looks, I would be president right now. | |
| Without a hesitation, like zero hesitation, Lindsay responds back, and your wife would be much happier. | ||
|
unidentified
|
True story, Cindy. | |
| True story. | ||
| Everyone wonders when they're watching C-SPAN what the conversations are on the floor. | ||
| That's an example of one of the conversations on the floor. | ||
| So right before we came on the stage, when James said, I think I'm going to tell McCain's story, I had like a moment of panic because when you've got a John story, it probably involves profanity. | ||
| But then I remembered that James was telling it, so it was going to be totally fine. | ||
| That'll be fun. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| It's going to be fun. | ||
| Okay, so our panel today is to have a discussion about American power at home and abroad. | ||
| And when I reached out to you and asked if you'd be willing to come and be with us this weekend, we spent a little bit of time in that first conversation talking about your book, which was about to be published. | ||
| And I think everyone has a copy of the book. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| So if you haven't had a chance to read it, I strongly encourage you to do so. | ||
| I spent some time reading the book, and what I was struck by was how you approach the idea of power and the responsibility that comes with that power. | ||
| It won't surprise you when I tell you that I was obviously enamored with your concept of how to think about power and responsibility because I feel that it is sorely needed in today's country. | ||
| And I hope that it embodies the way I tried to serve as well. | ||
| So what I'd love to do is start by having you talk a little about kind of your philosophy, the way you think that we should display American power at home. | ||
| Well, there's a couple of things I think that we as Americans forget. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And number one, we forget that we are Americans at times. | |
| And I don't say that flippantly. | ||
| The world is still watching us all the time. | ||
| And we lose track of that, how we argue, how we fight, how we resolve, how we spend money, what our priorities are. | ||
| The entire world watches. | ||
| I make a reference in the book at one point about a former Australian ambassador that he and I were having a conversation at one point. | ||
|
unidentified
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And he said to me, hey, we're your little brother, and we're looking up to you. | |
| And we can't figure out who you are right now. | ||
| And then he also said, he said, but Americans never seem to be content with who you are. | ||
| Everyone in the world wants to be an American. | ||
| And Americans are constantly fighting with each other. | ||
| But it was a very interesting, in some ways, reset for me to not forget that the rest of the world is counting on us to get this right. | ||
| This idea about freedom and opportunity, this idea about being a world citizen that actually sets the example for the rest of the world. | ||
| We're not the policeman for the world, but if I can say it this way, we're like the teacher on the playground. | ||
|
unidentified
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If you remove the teacher off the playground, it gets a little noisy on the playground. | |
| But when the teacher is engaged, just presence, just presence brings a calming sense to everybody around them. | ||
|
unidentified
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And when the United States withdraws from the rest of the world and you lose that presence, that's a problem for the rest of the world. | |
| And so I think we just can't lose track of that, but we also can't lose track of our responsibility to be who we are. | ||
| And that is a role model and an example in our tone and how we carry things out. | ||
| We should do that because people are counting on us. | ||
| So we're in a really interesting time politically. | ||
| You know, I would say that the number of elected officials who embody what you've just described has really decreased on both sides of the aisle in recent years. | ||
| So the folks who get a lot of the energy and the attention are the ones who are, you know, making a lot of news and kind of yelling about stuff, but aren't spending a lot of time, you know, in the work. | ||
| And in your book, you talk about the difference between those who are whining and those who are serving. | ||
| So what does that look like now? | ||
| Yeah, I make a comment in the book even that at the end, no matter how things turn out, I want to go down fighting, not whining. | ||
| I love that. | ||
| For some reason, we become a people that I think have lost hope. | ||
| Things will get better. | ||
| And so when you lose hope, you just get angry. | ||
| And so we yell at our TV and thinks that solves something. | ||
| I don't know if you know this. | ||
| They really can't hear you through the TV. | ||
| So that's not really how it works. | ||
| But if you think that they can, you might want to get some help. | ||
| Yeah, you might, yeah. | ||
| But to me, it's, yeah, we've got a lot of things to get done. | ||
| So just for the record, Illinois has as many tornadoes as Oklahoma, okay? | ||
|
unidentified
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Just for the record, aren't you? | |
| I did not know that. | ||
| Ours are just bigger most of the time, but quantity-wise. | ||
| But like literally, nobody makes a movie about a tornado in India. | ||
| In Illinois, yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Well, the taxes are too high to make a movie in Illinois. | ||
| So they, they, they, um, for, for us, one of the things we talk about a lot when we talk about tornadoes is when a tornado comes through, especially a big one, when a tornado comes through, it's just devastation. | ||
| It's incredibly painful to be able to stay in there because it's families and it's lives and all the possessions, everything else. | ||
| But when you, when you first have a tornado, the first responders come and they shut off the power and people come and start working. | ||
|
unidentified
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But by the next morning, there's a ton of folks there with pickup trucks and materials and they just start showing up from all over the place because there was a storm there and people rush in. | |
| And when it's your house and you see the devastation and it continues to rain and it's just overwhelming for everyone in those families until someone shows up and they just literally take the debris off the front of the house and move it to the curb when you can find the curb and just start moving. | ||
|
unidentified
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And when you see the first thing that gets better, there's a little bit of hope. | |
| If it got better today, it'll get better tomorrow. | ||
| When people show up and do something, it renews hope that something's going to get better. | ||
| When Congress yells about things and people just yell about it, but nothing actually gets better, people lose hope. | ||
|
unidentified
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But when people actually engage and do something, it makes a difference. | |
| And as simple as it is, one of the most powerful things that we can do as a country is find ways to be able to practically serve each other and serve our communities. | ||
|
unidentified
|
People that yell and are angry most of the time are also the people that are not doing anything to make it better. | |
| When you're actually serving and volunteering and you're engaging in your church, your house of worship or nonprofit or whatever it may be and you're making progress, your attitude changes because you're like, yeah, it's hard, but I'm actually doing something about it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And just your hope changes a little bit. | |
| So right now, in your book, you talk a little bit about how someone, folks will come up to you and say, gosh, I'm really glad that you're serving in the Senate because you're going to go fix all that. | ||
| Or they might come up and just tell you how they don't like you. | ||
| Yeah, that too. | ||
| And it might be the same person. | ||
| Depending on the hour. | ||
| In my case, it's like my father. | ||
| So what your response to folks when they say that is, I'm not the one who's going to fix everything. | ||
| You have to be a part of it. | ||
| What advice or hope would you offer to folks, regular people, if they say, well, I want to do something about it, but I feel like there's nothing to do? | ||
| Like, what can I do? | ||
| Yeah, as painful as it sounds, everyone says, how does this get turned around? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And my response to them is it's not an election. | ||
| It's not a vote. | ||
| I mean, for political junkies and people that track it all the time, it's like, yeah, if we just vote in the right person, we can get this done. | ||
|
unidentified
|
If I can do the old Saturday Night Live sketch, if we just have the perfect cheer, then everything gets better. | |
| Okay, that's not. | ||
| Are we going to do a cheer, though? | ||
| No, we're not. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So, but there is a. | ||
| I was ready. | ||
| There's just a sense of if we just elect one more person, just the right person, just the right thing, this all gets fixed. | ||
| And that's just not how it works. | ||
| Washington doesn't change the country. | ||
| The country changes Washington. | ||
| We are a republic. | ||
| And whether we like it or not, Washington, D.C. is a reflection of the emotion of the country. | ||
| And when people catch me all the time and say it's a divided, angry place and everything else, I'll usually smile at them and say, what was Thanksgiving like with your family last year? | ||
|
unidentified
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And that's what they do. | |
| They laugh. | ||
| They go, oh my gosh, my cousin and my uncle, they started yelling, we all left early. | ||
| I'm like, welcome to Washington. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's what we're dealing with. | ||
| We're divided. | ||
| Okay, we're divided. | ||
| So how do we start making progress? | ||
| The key is if we can make progress in our homes, our communities, our families, we shift the emotion. | ||
| Right now, what is praised in Washington is who is angriest. | ||
|
unidentified
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They get the praise. | |
| And we have to be able to shift as a people to say, that's actually not what I want. | ||
| And that's when things begin to really turn around and you begin to see that shift. | ||
| But we are a nation that has incredible opportunity and promise. | ||
| I mean, we know that. | ||
| Think about where we've come from in the last hundred years. | ||
| 105 years ago, not only could you not have been a senator, you couldn't have voted 105 years ago. | ||
| That just seems irrational to me that that's where our country was, but that's not where we are now. | ||
| So my simple statement is: I can see where we've been. | ||
| So let's quit whining and let's pray and let's get back to work. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, one of the stories that you tell kind of towards the beginning of your book was about a voter who came up to you and was really unhappy with you. | ||
| And that you said, look, we've got about 10 minutes or so before the flight was boarding. | ||
| Why don't we talk through until we figure out some common ground? | ||
| So first of all, that was extraordinary. | ||
| That's not normal, as I'm sure you know. | ||
| But the process of having that conversation changed both of you. | ||
| So what would that look like in the halls of Congress? | ||
| Yeah, you and I have experienced what that looks like. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| When you work to be able to find common ground, there are a lot of people that in private will say, I have common ground with you. | ||
| The hard part is when you try to get that in public, right now the nature of our politics is don't talk to them. | ||
| Well, the great thing about the Senate is the Senate forces both sides to have to talk to each other. | ||
| It's the only spot. | ||
| The cloture rules and filibuster rules require a three-fifths. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank goodness for them. | |
| Yes, absolutely. | ||
| Thank you very much for preserving that, Kirsten Sinema. | ||
| It seems to be. | ||
| Look, it's bipartisan support. | ||
| I know, I know. | ||
| It seems to be lately, Senator Schumer seems to be more excited about preserving the filibuster than he used to be. | ||
| He was this week. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'm enjoying it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| The three-fifths rule just has a simple requirement. | ||
| Both sides have to be able to talk to each other. | ||
| If you're going to move policy issues, now there's some rules and some are nominations, everything else. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But when we're going to do hard policy, we have to represent America. | |
| Both sides have to sit down to be able to figure out how are we going to actually make progress. | ||
| Our challenge is on a lot of the hard things. | ||
| It's been, it's now, it's so bad, we got to do everything. | ||
| It's like we're not going to get everything. | ||
| We got to do something. | ||
| We got to do the first thing, the second thing, the third thing. | ||
| It's the old diplomatic joke that when you're starting to negotiate in Israel, you don't start with Jerusalem. | ||
|
unidentified
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Okay. | |
| You start with something else that can be achieved earlier and you work your way to Jerusalem to be able to resolve that as an issue. | ||
| We've got to be able to make progress on a few things to show the American people that we can so that we can build some muscle memory back to doing that and that we can get to work on the hard things. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So it seems like in today's society and certainly in the media, the idea of incremental approach is not respected in the way that it used to be. | |
| But what you keep describing is making progress on a few things, even if they're small, to show success because success begets success. | ||
| So when we're thinking about what American power looks like at home, and we think about Americans all across the country who are divided, what are some examples of things that could look like success for folks? | ||
| Well, there's a million things. | ||
| Let me just try to touch on a couple of them. | ||
| I encourage people all the time that will catch me and say, what can I do to make my communities better? | ||
| Work in your family, be a great example. | ||
| Volunteer to school. | ||
| And let me give you just the most simple thing that I encourage a lot of small business owners, especially to do. | ||
| Find a classroom and have your folks at your place of work volunteer in that classroom. | ||
|
unidentified
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Do everything you can to take care of that one classroom and that one teacher. | |
| So that is providing school supplies, engaging, stopping by once a week to have somebody mentor some kids that are behind, doing some reading projects. | ||
| I mean, it's simple stuff that we all know. | ||
| But what happens is that one classroom, that one setting gets better. | ||
| The employees feel a sense of purpose and meaning because they're at your work and they're engaging with that, but they also have the opportunity to be able to do this a couple hours a week to be able to help. | ||
| It shifts an attitude dramatically to from, wow, I wish things were getting better at schools to I see a classroom getting better. | ||
|
unidentified
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Now, as odd as that sounds, that is a powerful American concept. | |
| There are many parts in the world that that would be unheard of. | ||
| Literally, we can't rationalize this as Americans because, as Americans, when we see a problem, we solve it. | ||
|
unidentified
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That's what we've always done. | |
| Hard things, okay, we go do that. | ||
| Land of the moon, we got that. | ||
| It just doesn't matter. | ||
| We have this attitude of, of course, we can do that. | ||
| Whether it's Lewis and Clark travel across the continent that we've never seen, sure, we can do that. | ||
| I mean, it's just the natural reaction of an American that, yes, we can do that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Other, many other parts of the world, that's not where they are. | |
| But for us to be able to engage with that in our local communities to say, if I'm walking past a school that's having a hard time, why would I just walk past it and say there's nothing that can be done when we know there's something that can be done? | ||
| I tell the story in the book of the biblical story of Nehemiah. | ||
| And you may or may not know the story, Old Testament story. | ||
| It's 100 years after Jerusalem was destroyed. | ||
| The Jews are living in captivity. | ||
| And you've got this Jewish boy named Nehemiah. | ||
| He's a slave captive. | ||
| His brother comes back from Jerusalem. | ||
| We don't know why he was there. | ||
| And when he comes back, he says, What's it like? | ||
| And his brother Hannah and I say, Oh, it's awful. | ||
| It's awful in Jerusalem. | ||
| The walls are torn down. | ||
| The gates are burned. | ||
| The people live in disgrace. | ||
| Economy's collapsed. | ||
| It's terrible. | ||
| And Hannah and I walk off. | ||
| Nehemiah drops to his knees and prays and says, God, what do I do about this? | ||
| And to me, we all get a decision every day whether it's going to be Hannah and I or Nehemiah. | ||
| Hannah and I says stinks to be them and walks away. | ||
| Nehemiah drops to his knees and says, There's a problem. | ||
| What do I do about it? | ||
| It's a simple thing for us. | ||
| Whether it's a school in your neighborhood, whether it's a community, whether it's a nonprofit, we as America have been strong because we've not expected somebody else in Washington to fix our problems. | ||
| We have fixed our community issues. | ||
| We have set the example. | ||
| And when we stop doing that and expect somebody else far away to be able to do that, we grow weaker. | ||
| You know, you'll remember this, that I used to say this to you all the time when we served together on the border subcommittee for six years, served together. | ||
| You chaired it for a while. | ||
| I chaired it for a while. | ||
| You're chairing it again. | ||
| Congratulations. | ||
| But I used to tell you all the time that Arizonans had really given up hope that Washington would ever fix the problems of our border and our immigration crisis, that the federal government had failed us for 40 years and that we just didn't ever think that the federal government would step in to help. | ||
| You and I and Chris Murphy of Connecticut worked on a project to address the border for about five months. | ||
| You talk about kind of what that process was like and what happened. | ||
| What I'd love to hear you share with folks today is how did we get to that place? | ||
| What do we try to do to fix it? | ||
| And where are we now? | ||
| And what does that look like both here at home, not just in Arizona, but in our country? | ||
| And what does it look like abroad? | ||
| What do people in other parts of the world see? | ||
| Yeah, so there's a couple of ways to be able to view that. | ||
| There's lots of lessons learned on that. | ||
| I wish we had had more people that were engaged in the negotiations, so more people had ownership. | ||
| The three of us were fighting for something on our own. | ||
| And for me, I was fighting solo on my own on that. | ||
| And so it got harder and harder. | ||
| We're always fighting solo. | ||
| I know, I got it. | ||
| I got it. | ||
| It worked out fine for me. | ||
| So with that particular test, that was one of the areas. | ||
| Social media was another area that just the noise, the whole 5,000 number, if you're tracking that, it took on a life of its own. | ||
| It was false the entire time, but because it was said so many times on social media, it sounded true, but it just wasn't. | ||
|
unidentified
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So we've got a lot to learn about how we handle information and social media noise on it. | |
| But for us, as leaders, it is still the challenge. | ||
| And I've had people say to me this: Would you ever do something like that again? | ||
| And I've laughed and said, Yeah, that's kind of why I'm here. | ||
| If it was all easy, then go do something else on it. | ||
| It's all hard. | ||
| All of it's hard. | ||
| The debt's hard. | ||
| All these areas are hard now. | ||
| That's the reason we're there is to do hard things. | ||
| At the point that we say, that looks too hard, I'm going to stop. | ||
|
unidentified
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Then what are we doing there? | |
| We're supposed to get the hard things done. | ||
| So let's go work on the next hard thing. | ||
| Now, it's not fun. | ||
| I mean, the only guarantee you have if you're in elected office is criticism. | ||
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unidentified
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That's the only guarantee that you have. | |
| There is so much of it. | ||
| There is a great amount of it. | ||
| You can take comfort. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Which I also laugh in one section of the book, I talk about this as well, to be able to say the old adage, the old economics adage: if you tax something more, you get less of it. | ||
|
unidentified
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If you criticize something more, you get less of it. | |
| And so the challenge is: everybody says, I want good leaders to be able to rise up. | ||
| But when we, as a culture, never bless, we just criticize, well, everybody kind of learns. | ||
| Well, I'm not going to do that. | ||
| And so that makes it hard. | ||
| For hard things like immigration, we have got to find areas where we can make progress. | ||
| What small thing can we do to make some progress? | ||
| The Lake and Riley Act passed in a bipartisan way, House and Senate. | ||
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unidentified
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That was a way to be able to, it was an enforcement piece, but it was a small step. | |
| It was literally something that could be done to say, let's make a step towards how we're going to handle enforcement. | ||
| I did have to laugh because last week, or actually, and that's been two weeks ago, my wife and I were together. | ||
| My bride, Cindy, is here somewhere. | ||
| She's right there. | ||
| So, yeah. | ||
| So we were actually riding together at one point, and I heard this conservative commentator, who I'll leave their name out, start complaining about the courts and some decisions that President Trump has made in the way he's doing enforcement and saying the courts aren't allowing him to do this. | ||
| And literally said, there's all these loopholes that are in the law. | ||
|
unidentified
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At some point, we're going to have to pass something in law to close it. | |
| It was my moment to yell at the TV and to say, oh, that's a great idea. | ||
|
unidentified
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You don't say. | |
| But it was a funny moment because I thought, I know 100% that you oppose that bill when it was moving through. | ||
| But now, suddenly, when it's like, oh, somehow we need to be able to close these loopholes, it suddenly became that somehow we need to pass this. | ||
| And I laughed and I thought, but that's why it's hard is because the politics and the policy, it's tough to be able to get an alignment there. | ||
| But we all know in our gut, we've got to make some progress. | ||
| We've got to start solving a few things because there's a lot more hard things after this. | ||
| And that's not just domestically, that's globally. | ||
| It's what are we going to do in Ukraine? | ||
| Everyone's focused on Ukraine and on what's happening in Gaza and what's happening in China. | ||
| And those rightfully so. | ||
| But are we also focused on the DRC? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Rwanda and Burundi, right now in the DRC, could break into full-scale war. | ||
| And the last time that happened, it was millions of people died. | ||
| Millions. | ||
| And destabilized the entire region on that. | ||
| And so we've got multiple areas around the world that they're counting on the Americans. | ||
| And people have contacted me and said, would the Americans engage? | ||
| Because we're still the Americans. | ||
| So engagement is looking a little bit different now than it used to, right? | ||
| Under President Biden, his concept of engagement was more of a traditional, certainly kind of a left-leaning type of engagement. | ||
| President Trump's style of engagement is very different. | ||
| It's more kind of full frontal, and it's both a kind of an engagement through the use of State Department with Secretary Rubio, but also through economic action. | ||
| So what is that? | ||
| What do you think that looks like? | ||
| And what are you hearing from folks on what that looks like abroad? | ||
| How are other countries responding to this different approach? | ||
| So it is very interesting because I talked to a lot of ambassadors, a lot of folks around. | ||
| Trump is high risk, high reward, kind of focused on this. | ||
| He is working very hard to be able to reset, obviously, NATO and to be able to get people engaged. | ||
| I would tell you, I've had frank conversations with his whole team. | ||
| They're not abandoning NATO. | ||
| That's a myth. | ||
| They're not trying to abandon NATO. | ||
| They do have an expectation that people will step up. | ||
| He said that in his first term as well. | ||
| So, but there are some strengthening that needs to be done there at that point. | ||
| I think it's an awakening to be able to watch the Russians on the move and start rolling through countries that definitely will awaken Europe to be able to say, we need to do a little bit more to make sure we're defending ourselves. | ||
|
unidentified
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That's good. | |
| The trade peace needs to be worked out, obviously, but that is a source of great economic power for the United States, but it's one that we need to wield carefully. | ||
|
unidentified
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The sanctions power is another one that I have to tell you is an American power, but we've got to be careful. | |
| We've been too aggressive on how we view sanctions. | ||
| At some point, as we continue to use sanctions, the rest of the world says, let's stop using American currency and the American dollar because we could be exposed to sanctions and they shift to something else. | ||
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unidentified
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They shift away from the American dollar as a global currency. | |
| We're in trouble economically. | ||
| The rest of the world knows it. | ||
| Now, we are in many ways the tallest kid in kindergarten, so we stand out, but we're still the tallest kid in the kindergarten economically right now because of the amount of debt that we're carrying. | ||
| So yes, we still have a stable currency and such, but it's important diplomatically we're careful on how we wield that economic power as well. | ||
| We need to use it, but we don't need to overuse it in that sense. | ||
| The same thing on tariffs. | ||
| We've got friends and allies that are friends and allies, but they've had trade barriers and tariff policies on us that have blocked us out. | ||
| And we think, okay, at some point that's got to be resolved. | ||
| Trump decided it was going to be by Thursday. | ||
| We're going to resolve it. | ||
| It's like immediately we're going to get. | ||
| He did decide that on a Tuesday. | ||
| He did. | ||
| And so it was like, we're going to get this resolved right away, but he's not wrong on all these policies. | ||
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Australia has blocked American beef for years. | |
| When you go to McDonald's and eat your hamburger, about 15% of that beef is Australian beef. | ||
| If you go to Australia, you're not going to have any American beef because they block our beef out. | ||
| Israel, one of our closest allies in the world, has had a 17% tariff on American goods. | ||
| What in the world? | ||
| That's one of our closest friends in the world. | ||
| So we already have this challenge now to be able to figure out how we're going to do this. | ||
| Israel has immediately come and said, why don't we drop this tariff to zero? | ||
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Officers are like, what a great idea. | |
| You're one of our greatest friends in the world. | ||
| Let's open up more and more trade between the two of us. | ||
| Now, if the goal at the end of it is to establish open trade and open ability for both countries to be able to trade, that's a great gain. | ||
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If the end is to be able to hide tariffs, we're going to have economic problems. | |
| But I believe the goal is going to end up being how do we open up more markets and more ability to be able to trade around the world? | ||
| That helps us in relationships. | ||
| Those who you have open trade with, you work it out. | ||
| And that's one of our challenges right now with China. | ||
| So China is, we're getting to the end of our time. | ||
| So this is a tough question at the end. | ||
| Good. | ||
| I'll cut it off then. | ||
| So China's situation is difficult. | ||
| Obviously, 145% tariffs is probably not. | ||
| Yeah, it's probably a little high. | ||
| Probably not sustainable. | ||
| It might be a touch high. | ||
| But the sentiment there, I think, from the president is very much, it's not just economic. | ||
| This is also geopolitical, and this is also around national security. | ||
| So let's gain that out for a minute. | ||
| What do you think happens as we move forward? | ||
| And where is Congress and what role does Congress have as we begin to try and right-size that relationship with China? | ||
| So let me give you a couple ideas. | ||
| One of the bills that I've worked on for a while, and we've spent a lot of time trying to get it right on it, is a bill called the Deter Act. | ||
| The Deter Act basically takes the model of what we did economically with Russia and Ukraine, that when Russia went into Ukraine, we cut off access. | ||
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American companies are out. | |
| We're shifting. | ||
| We're pulling out of Russia economically entirely, adding sanctions to them. | ||
| That's not that difficult with Russia because we had so little investment that was there. | ||
| That's not true with China. | ||
| So what we've tried to work on is what would that look like with China to completely decouple from them in a very rapid pace if China were to ever invade Taiwan? | ||
| What would that look like? | ||
| And we are trying to be able to chart that out to be able to pass in advance the responsibility of an executive that if China invades Taiwan, this is what the pullout looks like. | ||
| It has a couple of purposes. | ||
| One is to be able to let China know in advance, here's what's about to happen. | ||
| Second thing is to get every one of our American corporations that are engaged there to use their influence with the Chinese government to say, don't do this. | ||
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This is what's about to happen, and it will be bad for your country and for ours in this business. | |
| And the third thing is to tell every American business, if your sole connection point for manufacturing is there, find another place. | ||
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Because if China was foolish enough to invade Taiwan, your company's in trouble. | |
| And every one of your shareholders should be holding you to account to say, what is our plan B here to be able to make sure we're ready? | ||
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Because that would happen. | |
| We can either organize and plan it in advance, which I'm trying to do, or it's going to be a knee-jerk response from the Congress to be able to implement that. | ||
| So let's get it out there in advance to be a deterrent to China. | ||
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We are still mutually dependent on each other. | |
| So the next thing on it is we've got to be able to figure out how we're exposed to China. | ||
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And we know on the whole, medicine, food, energy. | |
| If you're dependent. | ||
| Yeah, minerals. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| If you're dependent on another country for your basic essential aspects of life, you're dependent on them. | ||
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We can't be that. | |
| If we're buying just Christmas trees and toys, okay, fine. | ||
| By the way, I don't mind doing business with China. | ||
| It's another country. | ||
| It's a billion people and it's a market. | ||
| But it's when we're dependent on them, for instance, our medicines. | ||
| 80% or so of our generics are coming from China. | ||
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If not that actual medicine, the active ingredients that are in it. | |
| We're very exposed in that area. | ||
| We cannot be so exposed. | ||
| So it's going to take us a while to move that out. | ||
| And here in Arizona, as you know, we're such a defense-heavy state that our defense economy, we're fifth in nation for defense contracting. | ||
| We're so dependent on aspects of our defense chain throughout the supply chain, whether it's minerals or materials or yeah. | ||
| And China's already cut off access to some critical minerals so we can't make magnets anymore. | ||
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Yeah. | |
| That's critical in our defense production. | ||
| I mean, that's one of the things that China has already done. | ||
| So we have to be aggressive and pay attention to those things. | ||
| So as we are running out of time, that's quite a thing for us to end our conversation on. | ||
| Yeah, sleep well. | ||
| Everything's fine. | ||
| Yeah, everything should be fine. | ||
| The last thing I'll say before we close is what I like about your legislation is whether or not China invades Taiwan, what you're doing is setting out a blueprint, not just for China to see, but for Americans to see. | ||
| These are the changes that we have to make in order to become less dependent and more interdependent. | ||
| Right. | ||
| We have to be a nation that has to be able to think ahead. | ||
| And I don't know if you know this, but government's kind of struggled with thinking ahead lately. | ||
| Government's reactionary most of the time. | ||
| But this is one of those moments I think we've got to be able to look over the horizon. | ||
| We can see it. | ||
| It's predictable. | ||
| So let's try to figure this out. | ||
| By the way, crashing government debt and Social Security insolvency in eight years and border issues, those are predictable as well. | ||
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But let's try to make the progress that we can make and let's get moving on it. | |
| That's great. | ||
| Let's end on that. | ||
| Thanks so much, James. | ||
| Please welcome Governor Doug Ducey. | ||
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A special thank you to all of today's speakers. | |
| It's a pleasure to welcome you all back again to the state of Arizona. | ||
| Isn't the Sedona Forum and the McCain Institute just wonderful? | ||
| It's like a shot of positive adrenaline. | ||
| Our state is honored to host so many distinguished guests from around the world. | ||
| And I want to say, whether it's your first time here or one of many, I hope you enjoy your time surrounded by the majestic beauty of Sedona. | ||
| Every year, this forum brings together leaders from a wide variety of disciplines. | ||
| So whether you're here with the goal of learning, we can make this a much more lasting and transformative impact on the world. | ||
| That is the goal of the Institute. | ||
| Whether it's in politics, the military, education, business, sports, or nonprofits, whatever your area of expertise, everyone in this room has unique perspectives on leadership and can greatly benefit each other. | ||
| And tonight, we will fondly remember the man who brings us here together. | ||
| Our senator, our warrior, our loved one, our friend, John McCain. | ||
| Senator McCain was not only from Arizona, Senator McCain was Arizona. | ||
| In the years since his passing, the void felt by John McCain's absence is eclipsed only by the extraordinary legacy he built. | ||
| Solving the challenges of our world we are facing will require all of us to operate with the traits that John McCain exemplified so well: boldness, resolve, vision, decency, faith, and hope. | ||
| It's my hope that after this forum, we'll all walk away humbled and reinspired to lead with John's example in mind. | ||
| For many years, the Sedona Forum has provided unparalleled opportunities for leaders to come together and grow in knowledge and appreciation of the world around us. | ||
| It's a big lift to put this gathering together. | ||
| So I want to say thank you to everyone at the McCain Institute for all your hard work making this forum possible. | ||
| And the McCain Institute is lucky to have the perfect partner in Arizona State University. | ||
| With ASU's worldwide reach and influence, the important mission and efforts of the McCain Institute are more impactful than ever. | ||
| This partnership builds on Senator McCain's legacy and continues his work in shaping future leaders and policy initiatives. | ||
| I also want to thank someone who remains an absolute blessing and treasure to the state of Arizona. | ||
| Someone who not only exemplifies John McCain's legacy, but who helped to build and shape it. | ||
| Cindy McCain, thank you for continuing to be an example of grace and service for us all. | ||
| You are an inspiration, and we love you, Cindy. | ||
| Senator McCain embodied what it means to fight for a cause greater than oneself. | ||
| That was John McCain's inspiration, his call to action. | ||
| May that vision guide our time together at the 2025 Sedona Forum. | ||
| Thank you so much for being here, and I look forward to spending these days together and advancing this important mission. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you for attending. | ||
| Looking to contact your members of Congress? | ||
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