Speaker 1: This is Master's in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: This weekend. On the podcast, I have an extra special guest,
Speaker 1: an extra extra special guest. He is Senator George Mitchell.
Speaker 1: He was the majority leader of the Senate for quite
Speaker 1: a while. His his curriculum vitae is just immense. Rather
Speaker 1: than go over that, I'm just gonna say, if you're
Speaker 1: at all interested in the state of politics today and
Speaker 1: how we got a here, what we should be focusing on,
Speaker 1: what policymaking is really about, then sit down, strap yourself
Speaker 1: in for a master class in American politics and policy.
Speaker 1: With no further ado, my conversation with Senator George Mitchell.
Speaker 1: I'm Barry Ridholts. You're listening to Master's in Business on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. I have an extra special guess this week.
Speaker 1: His name is Senator George Mitchell. He was the majority
Speaker 1: leader of the U. S. Senate from has a rich
Speaker 1: and full career in politics and I can't even begin
Speaker 1: to read read you his his curriculum vitae in the
Speaker 1: army for two years, goes to Georgetown Law School, graduates
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty one. He is the assistant to Senator
Speaker 1: Ed Edmonds Muskie before he has appointed U. S. Attorney
Speaker 1: for the District in Maine by President Carter. He served
Speaker 1: as a federal judge principal architect of a number of
Speaker 1: peace treaties in Northern Ireland, in the Middle East. In baseball,
Speaker 1: He was also chairman of the Walt Disney Company. Senator
Speaker 1: George Mitchell, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thanks for having me. So
Speaker 1: you have a storied background, but I have to go
Speaker 1: back at least to the beginning of your legal career.
Speaker 1: You graduate Archtown Law in nineteen sixty one. You practice
Speaker 1: law for about a dozen years. What what sort of
Speaker 1: legal practice did you have? I began with the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice. UH, served there for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: Then I was hired by Senator Muskie to be on
Speaker 1: his staff here in the U. S. Senate in Washington.
Speaker 1: From there I left to join the law firm in
Speaker 1: Maine in x and I practiced there for about a
Speaker 1: dozen years. UH. Like everything else in life, the practice
Speaker 1: of law was much different than that is now, far
Speaker 1: less specialization. So I did a wide range of things,
Speaker 1: including I began increasingly to become involved as a trial lawyer. UH.
Speaker 1: And I participated also as an assistant local what we
Speaker 1: call county attorney. So I tried dozens and dozens of cases, criminal, civil, everything,
Speaker 1: mostly criminal. I did do some civil war and then
Speaker 1: I became the U. S. Attorney and there I tried
Speaker 1: a very large number of criminal cases as well. You're
Speaker 1: appointed by Jimmy Carter, you serve as U. S. Attorney
Speaker 1: for a couple of years. Somewhere in there, I recall
Speaker 1: reading a brief stint as a federal judge. Is that right?
Speaker 1: That's right. I was appointed a federal judge when the
Speaker 1: Congress enacted legislation to increase the number of federal judges
Speaker 1: in Maine. We had had since the state's creation in
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty only one federal judge, and uh that was
Speaker 1: double to two. And I became the second federal judge,
Speaker 1: only the twelfth and the whole history of the state.
Speaker 1: And then there's a um mid term opening in the Senate,
Speaker 1: and you're appointed to the U. S. Senate by Governor
Speaker 1: Joseph Brennan in nineteen eighty and you run for election
Speaker 1: in two and when by a pretty substate intel margin.
Speaker 1: I did win by a substantial margin, but for most
Speaker 1: of the race. I was behind by a substantial model.
Speaker 1: Very deeply etched in my memory is little over a
Speaker 1: year before the election when the headline news in a
Speaker 1: large daily newspaper was that I was trailing my opponent
Speaker 1: by thirty six percentage points in the general election. And
Speaker 1: at that time I was threatened with a primary election
Speaker 1: and I was behind in that race. Okay, so the
Speaker 1: come come from behind kid? How how did you end
Speaker 1: up closing that giant gap? What was Were you just
Speaker 1: less known to the voters or what was the big disparity?
Speaker 1: It was a combination of factors. First, the primary challenge
Speaker 1: never materialized, so I ended up getting the nomination without
Speaker 1: a contest. And then it was they head to head
Speaker 1: race for over a year. We had a lot of
Speaker 1: public appearances together. We had six televised debates and dates.
Speaker 1: We barely do that anymore. No, that's right. Well, it
Speaker 1: was my opponent who challenged me to the debates, and
Speaker 1: as the incumbent, I accepted them. Uh, And gradually, over time,
Speaker 1: I think I became better known and the tide slowly
Speaker 1: changed in my favor. I ended up pointing by a
Speaker 1: comfortable margin of the vote. So you get elected and
Speaker 1: fairly quickly you rise to the role of Senate majority leader.
Speaker 1: How did that happen? I was very fortunate. Uh. I
Speaker 1: was named the chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee
Speaker 1: for the nine six elections. Uh. That's a position that
Speaker 1: each party has. You helped candidates trning for office. So
Speaker 1: there's some influence in some power that goes well. There
Speaker 1: is if you do well. And we were very fortunate
Speaker 1: in the year. Although President Reagan was then in his
Speaker 1: second termam a really at the peak of his popularity.
Speaker 1: In the election of X we gained eleven seats and
Speaker 1: went from being the minority party to the majority party.
Speaker 1: Midterm elections often helps the party out of power. Will
Speaker 1: come back to that in a bit. So we were
Speaker 1: talking about elections, we're talking about how things have changed,
Speaker 1: the modern era of social media and little bubbles that
Speaker 1: people are in. How does that affect politics today. It's
Speaker 1: had a dramatic effect. Really, like the rest of life
Speaker 1: in general, you can't think of politics is something separate
Speaker 1: from the rest of our lives because it's affected by
Speaker 1: the same influences that work our family. All of our
Speaker 1: lives are and as we've seen the dramatic changes in
Speaker 1: human life, brought about through the technological advancements of recent years,
Speaker 1: the creation of social media, the beginning of cable news services,
Speaker 1: the increasing polarization of the media itself, which both influences
Speaker 1: and is influenced by those attitudes in public So, uh,
Speaker 1: serving in public office now is much different than it
Speaker 1: was when I was there. Running for public office is
Speaker 1: even more different. Let's talk a little bit about your
Speaker 1: background in international diplomacies, and we should begin with Northern Ireland.
Speaker 1: You a special envoy there for six years. You helped
Speaker 1: negotiate a number of UM resolutions to the conflict there.
Speaker 1: How did you get the parties to the table over
Speaker 1: a five year span. I shared three separate sets of discussions.
Speaker 1: The main negotiation lasted about two years. Uh. Interestingly, there
Speaker 1: were ten political parties in Northern Ireland and the two governments,
Speaker 1: so there were twelve parties and all to the negotiation.
Speaker 1: Not once ever was I able to get all twelve
Speaker 1: into the same room at the same time. Somebody had
Speaker 1: walked out, somebody had been evicted, somebody didn't like something
Speaker 1: that day, so we never got everybody together. As a
Speaker 1: result of which I did a lot of what I
Speaker 1: would call moving negotiation. I would go to their offices
Speaker 1: individually and see them one group at a time. I
Speaker 1: would have meetings with two of them or six of them. Uh.
Speaker 1: Once in a while we had most of them there,
Speaker 1: but it was very difficult because of the long standing
Speaker 1: hostility and mistrust. In the end, UH, to their great credit,
Speaker 1: the politicallys of Northern Ireland, who had spent their lives
Speaker 1: in conflict, H took a great risk personal, physical risk,
Speaker 1: political risk by entering into an agreement which pleased to say.
Speaker 1: Today this year marks the twentieth anniversary of it, and
Speaker 1: the piece is held. They remain divided, there are great
Speaker 1: differences of opinion. The government is not now functioning because
Speaker 1: of internal disagreement, but the violence has largely ended, and
Speaker 1: to me, that's a significant accomplishment, I'll say so. So
Speaker 1: the issue of the separate Northern Ireland politics sort of
Speaker 1: reared its head again with the Brexit vote. You know,
Speaker 1: there was a vote previous, Scotland and Ireland vote to
Speaker 1: stay in the United Kingdom and then they're both very
Speaker 1: much in favor of the EU and then suddenly there's
Speaker 1: this Brexit vote and everybody seems to be surprised by it.
Speaker 1: How do you look at the political situation in the
Speaker 1: UK and how significant is the Russian interference there. We
Speaker 1: keep reading about that the Brexit vote taken by the
Speaker 1: people of the United Kingdom was democratically taken and therefore
Speaker 1: must be respected. But I believe personally the it will
Speaker 1: prove to be an historic mistake for the people of
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom themselves and also and in particularly the
Speaker 1: people of Ireland. Not just Northern Ireland, which is a
Speaker 1: part of the United Kingdom along with England, Scotland and Wales,
Speaker 1: but the Republic of Ireland, which the economy of which
Speaker 1: is deeply integrated into that of the United Kingdom. Keep
Speaker 1: in mind, Ireland has five million people. The United Kingdom
Speaker 1: has sixty million people. The United Kingdom is a large,
Speaker 1: powerful nation. Ireland is heavily dependent on the economic integration
Speaker 1: with the UK, and so the people of Ireland risk
Speaker 1: being those most hurt by the UK decision to leave
Speaker 1: the European Union. Now how much that how much Brexit
Speaker 1: will be hard or soft, will they remain in a
Speaker 1: customed union, will it be a complete break? All those
Speaker 1: are now being decided literally as we speak in the
Speaker 1: British element and elsewhere, But I think it is an
Speaker 1: important matter for all the people of Ireland north and South,
Speaker 1: and all of the UK as well. I hope very
Speaker 1: much that the Prime Minister of the UK takes the
Speaker 1: position that they will accept what people refer to as
Speaker 1: a soft Brexit, not completely set of their relations with
Speaker 1: the European Union, and that's very much in the United
Speaker 1: States interests as well. Is there any chance that cooler
Speaker 1: heads prevail and everybody wakes up one day and says
Speaker 1: this is a terrible idea, let's let's not do this.
Speaker 1: I think that's not likely. At the time, it appears
Speaker 1: that the UK is going to move towards some form
Speaker 1: of change in its status within the European Union. I
Speaker 1: hope that both the leaders of the UK and the
Speaker 1: leaders of the European Union will negotiate in good faith
Speaker 1: to minimize the adverse impact, both economically and politically. A
Speaker 1: strong European Union, in my judgment, has been a major
Speaker 1: contributor to peace, stability and prosperity, now just in Europe,
Speaker 1: but around the world. So let's let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about peace around the world. The summit on on
Speaker 1: the Korean Peninsula that took place in Singapore. What are
Speaker 1: your thoughts about this. We must all hope and pray
Speaker 1: that it succeeds, because that is one of the most
Speaker 1: dangerous flashpoints in the world. But let's keep in mind
Speaker 1: that the United States position, as enunciated repeatedly by Sector
Speaker 1: State Pompeo, including as recently as a day ago, is
Speaker 1: that there must be complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization. The statement
Speaker 1: issued today by the President and Kim Jong un omitted
Speaker 1: the words verifiable and irreversible. Indeed, it was not a
Speaker 1: new statement. It referred simply to the statement made months
Speaker 1: ago in April by Kim Jong un that they would
Speaker 1: agree to de nuclearization. So, as of now, the two
Speaker 1: parties have different interpretations of what does denuclearization mean. That
Speaker 1: must be negotiated out, and hopefully the administration will insist
Speaker 1: on the American definition being accepted. The second major point
Speaker 1: to be negotiated is the pace of change. The President
Speaker 1: has said it's going to happen variously. He's used the
Speaker 1: words immediately, right away, fast, quickly. Kim Jong un has
Speaker 1: said it is a process that will take a long
Speaker 1: time and that it should be phased out over a
Speaker 1: long period of time. I think that the President's words
Speaker 1: in this respect are somewhat over optimistic. I think it
Speaker 1: is going to take time, But the question is how
Speaker 1: much time and how will it be verified? How can
Speaker 1: we know for certain they're doing what they say they're doing.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind that no North Korean, not Kim Jong
Speaker 1: On any other, has ever used the words verifiable and irreversible.
Speaker 1: So we heard um the US has given up war
Speaker 1: exercises in the China Sea. There's talks about relieving some
Speaker 1: of the embargoes that around Korea. We've given them a
Speaker 1: lot of prestige just by having their president sit down
Speaker 1: with our president. Doesn't seem like we've gotten a whole
Speaker 1: lot back so far. What's the takeaway from this initial summit. Well,
Speaker 1: we've made three significant possessions already to the North Koreans.
Speaker 1: The first is the meeting itself. Every North Korean leader
Speaker 1: wanted a meeting with the American president because that, of
Speaker 1: course places them at the center of the international stage.
Speaker 1: The secon and is that we have changed our policy dramatically.
Speaker 1: Until just recently, the American policy under President Trump and
Speaker 1: his predecessors was that North Korea had to commit to
Speaker 1: de nuclearization as a condition to getting into a meeting.
Speaker 1: Now that is shifted from a condition to getting into
Speaker 1: the meeting to a goal of the meeting. That's a
Speaker 1: significant concession. And the third is, of course, and end
Speaker 1: to the joint US South Korean military exercises, which is
Speaker 1: has been a longstanding objective of North Korea. Now, if
Speaker 1: it turns out that we do get full and verifiable
Speaker 1: and irreversible denucluisation, it will have been worth the price,
Speaker 1: but we don't know that yet. And so until now
Speaker 1: there to go. The concessions have gone one way, and
Speaker 1: we'll have to see what to negotiations produced. All of
Speaker 1: us must hope and pray that it will succeed and
Speaker 1: the policy as we expect it will take place, but
Speaker 1: that remains to be seen, and it's going to be
Speaker 1: a long difficult road. Let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: life after the Senate. You become chairman of the Disney Corporation. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you're there for four years? How did that? How
Speaker 1: did that position come about? Just before I left the Senate,
Speaker 1: I was contacted by Michael Eisner, who was then the
Speaker 1: CEO and chairman of the Walt Disney Company, asked to
Speaker 1: meet with him and members of the board, and they
Speaker 1: offered me the position of president of the company, that
Speaker 1: is second in line to after CEO. A great man
Speaker 1: named Frank Wells had held that position. He had died
Speaker 1: tragically in a helicopter crash, and they were looking for
Speaker 1: someone to succeed them. After giving a careful consideration with
Speaker 1: my wife, five was of course flattered and honored by
Speaker 1: the offer, I decided not to accept it because my
Speaker 1: goal was to get back into the practice of law,
Speaker 1: with which I was more familiar, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: continue living in the East. Uh. I told Michael, and
Speaker 1: about a month later he called me and said, we
Speaker 1: know you've turned us down on the other position, but
Speaker 1: we have a vacancy on the board of directors. Would
Speaker 1: you be interested in join the board? And I was
Speaker 1: very much interested. I like Michael, I liked the company.
Speaker 1: It was interesting and exciting for me, and so I
Speaker 1: served on that board for about twelve years, the last
Speaker 1: four of which I was the chairman of the board.
Speaker 1: So your chairman at the same time that Disney ends
Speaker 1: up buying Picks are a tremendous acquisition that so far
Speaker 1: as worked out really well. What was the decision making process,
Speaker 1: like was that motivated by Eisner? By Steve Jobs? Who?
Speaker 1: Who moved that forward? And how did the board respond
Speaker 1: to a lot of people were a little skeptic given
Speaker 1: what looked like a high price. It's since paid off
Speaker 1: in spades, but back then people were concerned about it. Uh.
Speaker 1: The decision was made by Bob Iger shortly after he
Speaker 1: took office. Uh in UH discussions with the Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: and UH. Steve then joined our board and so we
Speaker 1: overlapped on the board for a relatively short time and
Speaker 1: then I retired. Uh. It was a good acquisition. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: that occurred right at the end of my tenure. Right
Speaker 1: at the very beginning of my tenure, we had made
Speaker 1: a large acquisition of ABC which included ESPN that also
Speaker 1: was criticized for overpaying, but it turned out very well.
Speaker 1: So we had at the beginning and at the end
Speaker 1: the acquisitions that paid off very well. In between, we
Speaker 1: had a third one which wasn't so good, that was
Speaker 1: purchasing UH what was then the Power Rangers became ABC Family.
Speaker 1: So UH, overall the record was good, but it wasn't perfect.
Speaker 1: So after the Pixar purchase, Steve Jobs, I believe becomes
Speaker 1: the biggest outside shareholder of Disney. Uh. You're on the
Speaker 1: board with him. What was that like? He's a famously
Speaker 1: mercurial CEO. What was he like as a Board of
Speaker 1: directors member? He was a valuable and contributing member of
Speaker 1: the board. Uh, very outspoken, very direct in his comments.
Speaker 1: I found him to be helpful to the board's deliberations
Speaker 1: and proceedings, although, as I said, we overlapped for a
Speaker 1: relatively short period of time. So you also served as
Speaker 1: a director for Federal Express, for Xerox, for Staples, for
Speaker 1: unital Leaver. How did the background in the Senate, and
Speaker 1: I guess, especially a majority leader, how did that help
Speaker 1: you prepare for those sort of private sector roles? While
Speaker 1: serving a SENTI majority leader is a very tough job.
Speaker 1: You don't have any real specific power, only the opportunity
Speaker 1: to try to persuade people to do things that they
Speaker 1: should be doing without being asked. But you do acquire
Speaker 1: some degree of patients, some degree of insight into how
Speaker 1: to bring people together. Uh. And so it was very
Speaker 1: helpful to me, not only in my role as a
Speaker 1: corporate director as chairman of a board, but also in
Speaker 1: my work in Northern Ireland, the Middle East and elsewhere.
Speaker 1: I want to say that for me, service on the
Speaker 1: boards that you described was really an enjoyable educational experience.
Speaker 1: I met and worked with some really great leaders. I'd
Speaker 1: mentioned Michael Eisner, who did a great job for twenty
Speaker 1: years with Disney. Bob Iger, who succeeded him, has done
Speaker 1: a great job during his tenure. One of the great
Speaker 1: persons I've ever met in any compare the political business
Speaker 1: was Fred Smith. I knew you're gonna know who was
Speaker 1: the founder and long term CEO of Federal Express. Fred
Speaker 1: as a terrific guy, would have succeeded in any walk
Speaker 1: of life that he chose. There were great leaders in
Speaker 1: other companies as well that I served on from whom
Speaker 1: I learned a lot. So During the steroid scandal at baseball,
Speaker 1: the performance nancing drug scandal, Major League Baseball was flailing
Speaker 1: about looking for a way to help resolve it. You
Speaker 1: got involved. Tell us how you helped them move beyond
Speaker 1: that era in in sports. That was a very difficult
Speaker 1: undertaking because I had no power to compel anyone to
Speaker 1: talk with me or to produce documents. Everything is voluntary
Speaker 1: and the Major League Baseball Players Association made the decision
Speaker 1: to oppose the investigation and to refuse to cooperate in
Speaker 1: any way. Of the twelve hundred major league players, only
Speaker 1: one voluntarily agreed to talk to me. In response to
Speaker 1: my request. I sent a letter to every single one
Speaker 1: of the twelve players, and only one responded. And who
Speaker 1: was that. That was Frank Thomas, who was then with
Speaker 1: the White Sox, a great player who made the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame, and I met with him. It was on
Speaker 1: the condition that he wasn't going to disclose any names,
Speaker 1: and he didn't, but he confirmed the fact that there
Speaker 1: was widespread use of steroids. He resented the fact that
Speaker 1: he had achieved historic successes, putting him in the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame in a clean way, but he had to
Speaker 1: compete with players who cheated by using drugs. And I
Speaker 1: made the argument to the players, which they rejected at
Speaker 1: the time, but later accepted that the principal victims of
Speaker 1: what was going on, with the majority of players who
Speaker 1: didn't cheat, they had to compete with players who were cheating,
Speaker 1: and their livelihood were endangered. They rejected at the time,
Speaker 1: but I'm very pleased to tell you that after I
Speaker 1: issued my report, there began to be a change in
Speaker 1: attitude and right now, to their great credit, the players
Speaker 1: strongly support vigorous enforcement, a comprehensive program, and Major League Baseball,
Speaker 1: to the eternal credit of the then Commissioner Bud Selig,
Speaker 1: who started this process, and to the players who have
Speaker 1: now come around to this view, major League Baseball has
Speaker 1: the toughest most effective drug testing drug prevention program in
Speaker 1: professional sports in the United States. Fascinating stuff. I have
Speaker 1: to just ask you the straight up question, what do
Speaker 1: you think of the state of politics in America today?
Speaker 1: It's unfortunate, uh, were dysfunctional as widely used, and I
Speaker 1: think that it does not reflect well on our country,
Speaker 1: or on our democracy, on or on our political process.
Speaker 1: But let's point some fingers, because no one person, no
Speaker 1: one party, gets all of the blame. But but how
Speaker 1: would who would you point fingers at historically that led
Speaker 1: us to where we are today? Where there are many factors.
Speaker 1: I'm not an historian or a sociologist. I'm an ex politician.
Speaker 1: I'll make two comments, uh, two suggestions that I think,
Speaker 1: if adopted, would help improve the situation. Where in the
Speaker 1: first is to jerrymandering the manipulation of congressional district lines
Speaker 1: each ten years after the census. It's been going on
Speaker 1: since the country was founded, but technology has advanced so rapidly,
Speaker 1: and as you know, technologies neutral. It can be used
Speaker 1: for good purposes, it can be used for bad purposes.
Speaker 1: In the case of Gerryman has been used to an
Speaker 1: extreme way that has resulted in what you might call
Speaker 1: minority representation UH in state after state, big states, Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, Republican candidates for the House of Representatives in
Speaker 1: recent the most recent years after the last redistricting, received
Speaker 1: a minority of the vote and got a huge majority
Speaker 1: of the seats. Underway now is an effort in sixteen states,
Speaker 1: led by California and Iowa, to to deep politicized, to
Speaker 1: reduce the politicization of the process of rewriting, revising congressional
Speaker 1: districts to make them more compact, more logical, more competitive.
Speaker 1: I think that's a huge factor and that will go
Speaker 1: a long way toward reducing the dysfunction. That's very pro democracy,
Speaker 1: and that's less about grabbing power and more about respecting
Speaker 1: That's exactly right there say some there's some Supreme Court
Speaker 1: cases spending on this all there are. It's a big
Speaker 1: issue now for the stream. The second is money. We
Speaker 1: are drowning in money. I travel all over this country
Speaker 1: and for ten years I have asked every audience, do
Speaker 1: you believe that our members of Congress are more responsive
Speaker 1: to their constituents than they are to their donors? In
Speaker 1: ten years before tens of thousands of people, only two
Speaker 1: or three people have raised their hands. That that's the
Speaker 1: corruption of American politics. The trust of the public in
Speaker 1: their elected officials has been severed. And you cannot have
Speaker 1: an effectively functioned democracy if the people do not trust
Speaker 1: those who they have elected. And a big reason for
Speaker 1: that is money. The Supreme Court, in a series of decisions,
Speaker 1: the best known one being Citizens United, has opened the
Speaker 1: floodgates to money pouring into our system at precisely the
Speaker 1: time that, in a series of unrelated actions, transparency has decreased,
Speaker 1: almost to the point of vanishing. So you have this
Speaker 1: double whammy, billions and billions of dollars being poured into
Speaker 1: the political process, less and less openness for the people
Speaker 1: to know who's giving what to whom. So you're not
Speaker 1: a big believer as some Supreme Court Justices seem to
Speaker 1: be that money is the same as speech. So they
Speaker 1: say money is money and speech is speech. And every
Speaker 1: sixth grade student in America knows they're not identical. And
Speaker 1: the second point is that we ought to have the
Speaker 1: right in our country, the people, through their elected representatives,
Speaker 1: to impose reasonable restraints on contributions to political campaigns and
Speaker 1: expenditures by political campaigns. This Supreme Court has effectively prohibited that.
Speaker 1: And that's what we need is a change that says, yes,
Speaker 1: American people can they do have the right to control
Speaker 1: the amounts of money going into campaigns and to control
Speaker 1: the manner in which that money has spent in political campaigns.
Speaker 1: Until that happens, I don't think we're going to see
Speaker 1: any change in the dysfunction. I think, in fact, it
Speaker 1: will get worse. What what about public financing of of
Speaker 1: candidates and elections instead of private donations. I believe in it,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have political support in our country. When
Speaker 1: I was sent a majority leader, we passed in the
Speaker 1: Congress for the last time a major comprehensive campaign finance law.
Speaker 1: We couldn't get the votes to include public financing. It
Speaker 1: did a lot of other good things, but unfortunately President
Speaker 1: Bush vetoed the bill and we couldn't override the V two.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the sixteen presidents election. A number
Speaker 1: of people were surprised by the outcome. I recall sitting
Speaker 1: and my wife was a big Hillary supporter. She's a
Speaker 1: public school teacher, and I remember very early watching the
Speaker 1: returns come in. We saw North Carolina was a little
Speaker 1: it a little uh late, and and some of the
Speaker 1: other normally Democratic leaning states like Virginia, and I recall
Speaker 1: saying to her, honey, Uh, this doesn't look like it's
Speaker 1: going your way. How surprised were you buy the outcome
Speaker 1: of that election. I had a feeling it was coming,
Speaker 1: and in fact I appeared on Bloomberg Television that evening,
Speaker 1: and just before I went on, the young man who
Speaker 1: worked for Bloomberg doing the cabulating and the interpreting the
Speaker 1: votes come up to me and said, Trump is gonna win? Really?
Speaker 1: And he did, yes, Yes, as a young man, just
Speaker 1: in the same building, a different floor. So at that
Speaker 1: point I realized that it was over. Of course, as
Speaker 1: we all know, Trump lost the popular popular vote by
Speaker 1: about three million, but under our system, he won fairly
Speaker 1: and in a democratic way. Uh, my disagreements with the
Speaker 1: president focused on policy. Has been a lot of talk
Speaker 1: about his personal characteristics, and everybody, every citizen, is able
Speaker 1: to make up his or her own mind. In that respect,
Speaker 1: I think the public debate ought to focus on policy,
Speaker 1: and my disagreements with him are in the area of policy,
Speaker 1: most recently in the so called tariff wars and the
Speaker 1: trade wars and tarroifts being imposed on our lies like
Speaker 1: Canada and the European Union. And so she's got this
Speaker 1: hugely ironic situation where the president is praising Putin and
Speaker 1: Kim Jong un and blasting Canada's prime minister and the Europeans,
Speaker 1: who are our historical lies. Well, the Canadians are a
Speaker 1: very vicious warlike people on our northern border. You have
Speaker 1: to you have to be prepared for Uh. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm every bit of surprised that it's China, Russia, and
Speaker 1: North Korea are now our friends and Canada, the UK
Speaker 1: and Europe seems to somehow be our our adversaries. And
Speaker 1: to say that's a complete misreading of history. Also in
Speaker 1: the after let me go back in the seventy five
Speaker 1: years before nine, Europe was devastated by three major landfomers
Speaker 1: in the last to the United States interfered decisively in
Speaker 1: the aftermath of that terrible conflict, in which sixty three
Speaker 1: million people died in a world in which the population
Speaker 1: was less than half of what it is now, we
Speaker 1: the United States, led the creation of a world order
Speaker 1: to promote trade, stability, peace, and prosperity, and it included
Speaker 1: the European Union, NATO institutions to help people, all of them,
Speaker 1: achieve democracy and freedom and prospery Arnie, and largely it
Speaker 1: has worked. It's imperfect, as are all human beings and
Speaker 1: all institutions. What the President is doing is in effect
Speaker 1: tearing down that system and trying to replace it with
Speaker 1: a series of ad hoc alliances with Russia, with China,
Speaker 1: and with North Korea. There's no reason why the two
Speaker 1: have to be mutually exclusive. We don't have to attack
Speaker 1: Canada in order to do a deal with North Korea.
Speaker 1: We don't have to seek the dissolution of the European
Speaker 1: Union in order to deal with China or Russia more effectively.
Speaker 1: In fact, the opposite is true. We should be strengthening
Speaker 1: our alliance with our friends to help us in dealing
Speaker 1: with our historic adversaries, and as as I put it,
Speaker 1: we should be combining with Europe to deal with the
Speaker 1: real abuses by China in the system of world trade. Instead,
Speaker 1: it is we who are isolated and China and others
Speaker 1: who are allied against us. It's an ironic turn in
Speaker 1: the wheel of history that I think will ultimately redound
Speaker 1: not well for the United States. Let's talk about China.
Speaker 1: It seems that the United States is seating leadership on
Speaker 1: a number of areas to China. Technology, helping the Third
Speaker 1: World come crawl out of their economic disadvantage, trade, immigration,
Speaker 1: China seems to really have stepped into the void that
Speaker 1: the US since has has created. Well, the greatest gift
Speaker 1: that the Chinese government could receive was given by President
Speaker 1: Trump when he took office and withdrew from the Trans
Speaker 1: Pacific Trade Partnership. These were ten Pacific facing nations who
Speaker 1: wanted to establish their primary economic relationship with the United States.
Speaker 1: They did not want China to be dominating them in
Speaker 1: economic or other affairs, and we spurned that effort. We
Speaker 1: in effect withdrew. So what did they do? Well, They're
Speaker 1: now turning to an agreement that will include China. We
Speaker 1: effectively walked out the door and left it open for
Speaker 1: the Chinese to dominate, and and that was a profound error. Now,
Speaker 1: the fact is the Chinese have abused and misused international
Speaker 1: trade mechanisms. They don't enforce intellectual property rights, they impose
Speaker 1: restrictions on foreign investment. There is a great deal of
Speaker 1: theft of international property rights. We should be addressing those directly,
Speaker 1: with the support of our allies, in a way that
Speaker 1: deals with the problem. If you've got an intellectual property
Speaker 1: rights problem, you address that directly. A broadly tariff based,
Speaker 1: tariff increased based approach is exactly the wrong approach. So
Speaker 1: we're using the wrong weapon to fight the Chinese in
Speaker 1: there in the way they're abusing the system, and we
Speaker 1: are at the same time severing our ties with our
Speaker 1: allies who should be supporting us in the effort. The
Speaker 1: Europeans cannot understand what it is that we're doing because
Speaker 1: it is ultimately so contrary to our own interests. Astonishing stuff.
Speaker 1: We have been speaking with Senate Majority Leader uh and
Speaker 1: peace negotiator Senator George Mitchell. If you enjoy this conversation,
Speaker 1: be sure and come back to check out the podcast extras.
Speaker 1: You can find that on iTunes, overcast stature, Bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 1: wherever final podcasts are sold. We love your comments, feedback
Speaker 1: and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. Check out my daily column on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com. Follow me on Twitter at rit Holts. I'm
Speaker 1: Barry Hults. You're listening to Masters and Business on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast, Sandra Mitchell. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for doing this. I'm a fan of yours for a
Speaker 1: while and I really enjoy the master's um level education
Speaker 1: in policy and politics. Well. Thanks, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1: It's have been a pleasure to talk with you. So
Speaker 1: so let's go over some of the questions we didn't
Speaker 1: get to during the broadcast portion you you had said
Speaker 1: something that I took a note on. Being Senate Majority
Speaker 1: leader is is very challenging and you don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of explicit authority, but you do have the ability
Speaker 1: to appoint chair people of different committees and standing um
Speaker 1: appoint mensay, as well as you get to control what
Speaker 1: comes to the floor. I would think it's a fairly
Speaker 1: big amount of fairly substantial amount of power in one person.
Speaker 1: That the fifty plus senators the that answer to the
Speaker 1: majority leader are not going to want to make you
Speaker 1: upset with them. The majority leader no longer has the
Speaker 1: direct power to appoint chairman and individual committee members. That's
Speaker 1: done on both sides, generally by a committee of senators.
Speaker 1: He does appoint to steering what we call the Steering Committee,
Speaker 1: so he does have an indirect authority. But also there
Speaker 1: have been customs built up, including seniority, which is an
Speaker 1: absolute but as a huge factor. So you're right, he is,
Speaker 1: I would get I would describe it as first among equals.
Speaker 1: Does have some degree, but it is no way near
Speaker 1: the power to say of the Speaker of the House.
Speaker 1: The Speaker of the House is mentioned in the constitutional
Speaker 1: constitutional office. In fact, the Speaker of the House is
Speaker 1: third in line to the presidency and the event of
Speaker 1: something happening. Uh, the Senate majority leader is not mentioned anywhere.
Speaker 1: It's it's a custom that arose when the Senate became dysfunctional,
Speaker 1: long after the Senate itself began its existence. So, Uh,
Speaker 1: you have the power of persuasion, you have to gain
Speaker 1: the trust and confidence of your colleagues. So Senator Mitch
Speaker 1: McConnell has been majority leader for the Republicans for quite
Speaker 1: some time. Now, what do you think of the job
Speaker 1: he's done, both as a former Senate majority leader and
Speaker 1: as a Democrat looking at the control the opposing party
Speaker 1: has well. I regard Mitch as a friend. I was
Speaker 1: flattered when he was a like a majority leader, he
Speaker 1: described me as the role model he had intended to emulate.
Speaker 1: I think he's been very effective in behalf of his
Speaker 1: party and the principles of his party. I disagree with
Speaker 1: some of the things he's done. I strongly disagreed with
Speaker 1: his decision, which has proven to be effective from their standpoint,
Speaker 1: to not permit even a hearing or a vote on
Speaker 1: President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court one year before
Speaker 1: Obama left office. That's going to come back someday and
Speaker 1: haunt them because every weapon used in politics war is
Speaker 1: rapidly disseminated to the other side. So it's just a
Speaker 1: matter of time until right after the mid term elections,
Speaker 1: a party says, well, we're not going to consider any
Speaker 1: more presidential nominees. If it can be one year, why
Speaker 1: can't it be two years. I think that's very destructive
Speaker 1: of the process. Harmful for the country, but I think
Speaker 1: it sure did advance the interest of the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: Do you think they stole a seat? Is that a
Speaker 1: fair way? Well, I I don't use those words. He
Speaker 1: pursued a policy, he was firm on it, he executed
Speaker 1: and implemented on his plan, and it succeeded. From that perspective,
Speaker 1: I think is down the road when that is applied
Speaker 1: in the other direction. Uh, there may be a balancing
Speaker 1: of that view. But I think he's he's effective, he's intelligent.
Speaker 1: He clearly has the trust and support of the vast
Speaker 1: majority of his colleagues, particularly uh those his party has caucus,
Speaker 1: the Republicans in the Senate. So we mentioned the little
Speaker 1: social bubbles that have come up in terms of consumption
Speaker 1: of news courtesy of social media. What do you think
Speaker 1: the impact of a cable channel like Fox News has
Speaker 1: been on the population and the politics in the United States. Well,
Speaker 1: it's had a profound effect, and the principal effect has
Speaker 1: been to benefit those whose views are espoused on Fox News. Uh.
Speaker 1: The reality is, of course, that they have been partisan
Speaker 1: news outlets throughout our nation's history. One of the roughest
Speaker 1: elections in American history was an eighteen hundred when the
Speaker 1: two candidates were men who have become icons in American history.
Speaker 1: John Adams was the incumbent, Thomas Jefferson was the challenger,
Speaker 1: and they were what we would think of a Newspapers
Speaker 1: that were very partisans said awful things about each candidate.
Speaker 1: But then of course the news were they were rarely
Speaker 1: read by few people. It was distant in time and place.
Speaker 1: It did not have anywhere near the scope and power
Speaker 1: of electronic media, the communication the radio that we're now
Speaker 1: speaking over, the power of the television camera, which reaches
Speaker 1: literally everybody in this country, and as we discussed earlier,
Speaker 1: particularly in cable news, has the enormous effect of repetition
Speaker 1: that drives home a point. Uh, if a politician makes
Speaker 1: a mistake, now it isn't just reported and forgotten, it's
Speaker 1: repeated thousands of times. So it's deeply embedded in the
Speaker 1: minds and attitudes of the American people. And let me
Speaker 1: just make one of the point. As humans, we have
Speaker 1: two capacities that that are very very important in this discussion.
Speaker 1: The first is there is almost no limit to the
Speaker 1: human capacity to rationalize, to excuse behavior by those who
Speaker 1: with whom I'm associated that we would never tolerate in
Speaker 1: those on the other side. And then secondly, our minds
Speaker 1: are wired in a way that we receive, well, retain,
Speaker 1: and use information that is consistent with our own previous views.
Speaker 1: But we have a hard wall that keeps out information
Speaker 1: that is inconsistent with our prior beliefs. And so we
Speaker 1: tend to receive information see gout and receive information that
Speaker 1: confirms our views, and to repel and reject information to
Speaker 1: the country. And you combine that with the immense, immense
Speaker 1: power of rationalization, and you have people in this country
Speaker 1: today who not only support not only a silent about
Speaker 1: but affirmatively speak out in behalf of actions that they
Speaker 1: would never tolerate when performed by the other side. And
Speaker 1: that goes both ways, of course. So one pundit has
Speaker 1: gone so far as to say if there was a
Speaker 1: Fox News type of an organization when Nixon was president,
Speaker 1: he never would have had a step down after Watergate?
Speaker 1: Is that overstating it? Or how influential is is an
Speaker 1: entity like Fox News or maybe something like Sinclair broadcasting
Speaker 1: to the either local or national politics. It's in pospold
Speaker 1: to of course, either categorical acceptor eject a description like that.
Speaker 1: But it is indisputable that Fox has enormous power and
Speaker 1: that it is it has become a part of the
Speaker 1: Republican Party and a spokesman for the party, not just
Speaker 1: announcing the views, but actually shaping the views and changing
Speaker 1: the views. Just look at the policies or the Republican
Speaker 1: Party on the issue of trade. For nearly a century,
Speaker 1: Republicans have strongly advocated trade policies, very very pro open trade.
Speaker 1: Board back and look at the votes in the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives by Mike Pants when he was in the House,
Speaker 1: by most of the top Republicans literally on a dime.
Speaker 1: The policy has been completely reversed, and now you have
Speaker 1: the most anti free trade president in modern era, strongly
Speaker 1: supported by Fox and by others in the Republican establishment,
Speaker 1: whether within the party itself or those who support it. Now,
Speaker 1: that happens on all sides in politics. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: a Democrat, but the fact is that a long time ago,
Speaker 1: Democrats were the party of slavery, and the Civil War
Speaker 1: divided Democrats on the subject, while Republicans were created on
Speaker 1: the abolition side. The two parties have completely shifted roles
Speaker 1: on the on the dramatic and powerful issue of race.
Speaker 1: Over the past hundred and fifty years, shifted roles somewhat
Speaker 1: on trade, and so people change, individuals and political institutions.
Speaker 1: But the power of electronic media has created a situation
Speaker 1: in our politics that enables people to more fully exercise
Speaker 1: the natural rationalization that we all have and to justify policies.
Speaker 1: As I said, I'm repeating myself now that they would
Speaker 1: not otherwise told Jimmy. Just give one example of that
Speaker 1: right now. When President Obama said that he would be
Speaker 1: willing to talk to other foreign leaders, there was an
Speaker 1: avalanche of criticism Cuba. I remember people went crazy over Cuba,
Speaker 1: and they specifically mentioned North Korea. You go back and
Speaker 1: look at the old Fox News reports and Republican political leaders.
Speaker 1: There was an avalanche of criticism that he would think
Speaker 1: of talking to these terrible people. Well, now that Trump
Speaker 1: has done it, it's supportive, and of course it's truth
Speaker 1: that the Democrats go through role reversals as well. I
Speaker 1: don't mean to suggest that this is a one way
Speaker 1: street in American politics, but the combination of the power
Speaker 1: or of electronic media, the human capacity for rationalization, our
Speaker 1: closing our minds to different points of view. Personally, I
Speaker 1: think it's unhealthy. One of the greatest things that happened
Speaker 1: to me as Senate majority leader was I had to listen.
Speaker 1: I had to listen to points of view, many of
Speaker 1: which I disagreed with, because I had to respect each
Speaker 1: senator as an individual who had his or her own views,
Speaker 1: his or her own constituency. And I I've said many
Speaker 1: times that the most effective way of leading is by listening.
Speaker 1: You get to know what people want, and then you
Speaker 1: can act on that basis rather than acting on the
Speaker 1: basis of what you think they might want. Quite quite fascinating.
Speaker 1: So there's two subjects I have to get to um
Speaker 1: before we get to our standard questions, one of immigration,
Speaker 1: but the other is much bigger. Let's talk a little bit,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's not bigger, but let's discuss what's going
Speaker 1: on with the Muller investigation. Uh, you you were a
Speaker 1: majority leader during certain special Council appointment point theees, what
Speaker 1: do you think about what's taking place with the issue
Speaker 1: of of Russian interference with the election, the whole Muller investigation,
Speaker 1: the witch hunt, the president saying you can pardon himself.
Speaker 1: This has to strike you as somewhat bizarre compared to
Speaker 1: what what you lived through, and you are sent a
Speaker 1: majority leader or am I ouvererstanding? It is this just
Speaker 1: par for the course? Well, it has been historically the
Speaker 1: case that presidents who have been subject to independent investigations
Speaker 1: have opposed those investigations, have sought to undermined them, have
Speaker 1: sought to discredit them. Uh. And uh so that's what
Speaker 1: President Trump is doing. That's what President Clinton tried to do. Uh.
Speaker 1: The fact is that, uh, Robert Mueller is a Republican.
Speaker 1: He was appointed by Rod Rosenstein, who is a Republican,
Speaker 1: and who was appointed to his position by President Trump.
Speaker 1: So it's a far stretch to suggest that it's a
Speaker 1: partisan witch hunt when the two principal leaders, those conducting
Speaker 1: and those supervising the investigation, are themselves lifelong Republicans. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't think they will succeed. I think it would
Speaker 1: be a catastrophic error for the president to fire Muller,
Speaker 1: although that appears to be at least from time to
Speaker 1: time under consideration. I also think it will be a
Speaker 1: catastrophic error for the president to refuse to honor a
Speaker 1: subpoena issued by the Muller investigation. If in fact, he
Speaker 1: does not agree to testify, so I think he's got
Speaker 1: a tough decision to make sometime in the next few months. Meantime,
Speaker 1: I think Bob Mueller has demonstrated a degree of restraint.
Speaker 1: There are no leaks from his investigation, none whatsoever. It's
Speaker 1: talking about discipline. He's played it straight. He has talented,
Speaker 1: able people uh working for him. We don't know what
Speaker 1: the facts are because he has not disclosed them, and
Speaker 1: so it's premature for anyone to say, well, this hasn't
Speaker 1: been proved or that hasn't been proved, because we don't know.
Speaker 1: He's in the middle of an investigation. When he completes
Speaker 1: his investigation and makes his views known, then we'll be
Speaker 1: able to make a judgment. I do want to say
Speaker 1: that I believe that both President Obama and President Trump
Speaker 1: have not responded with sufficient vigor to the efforts by
Speaker 1: the Russian government to interfere in our democratic process and
Speaker 1: to destabilize democracy. Is not just here, but in Europe
Speaker 1: and other places. As there's just a big report out
Speaker 1: this week that Russian intelligence officers and others seemingly interfered
Speaker 1: with the Brexit vote as well. Despite its possession of
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons, and it's having been a will superpower just
Speaker 1: a few decades ago, the Russian economy is actually quite small.
Speaker 1: It's less than half the size of California's economy. It
Speaker 1: doesn't even begin to approach ours. We should respect them,
Speaker 1: we should understand that they've been through a very difficult
Speaker 1: period of what many of them regard its national humiliation
Speaker 1: by the loss of superpower status. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's very clear that technology again has enabled them to
Speaker 1: conduct what is essentially cyber warfare on the United States,
Speaker 1: on democracy, on the Western European democracies, in a way
Speaker 1: that requires a vigorous response, and and I don't think
Speaker 1: our government has made a response with sufficient vigor and
Speaker 1: force that we need. I think that was true of Obama,
Speaker 1: and I think that is obviously true of Trump, who
Speaker 1: makes excuses for Putin almost every day, repeats his admiration
Speaker 1: for him. Now he wants to meet with him, wants
Speaker 1: to talk with him in the light of the overwhelming
Speaker 1: information that has been publicly disclosed about how Russia sought
Speaker 1: to interfere in our elections, So that that's a fascinating
Speaker 1: way to describe it. The pushback from the Obama supporters
Speaker 1: would be something like, well, we were in the middle
Speaker 1: of a presidential campaign and they didn't want to be
Speaker 1: accused of trying to interfere. Kind of a whimpy response
Speaker 1: if you asked me, or or at the very least
Speaker 1: not robust enough to say, Hey, regardless of the outcome
Speaker 1: of the election, we need to make sure that our
Speaker 1: process is safe and secure and has the confidence of
Speaker 1: the American people. What should Obama have done? The first time?
Speaker 1: The National Security apparatus says, hey, we see the Russians
Speaker 1: are trying to cause ruckus here, either hacking actual voting
Speaker 1: equipment or their interference via social media. What should the
Speaker 1: Obama administration have done? Well, he did go to Putin
Speaker 1: and say personally and directly to him, cut it out.
Speaker 1: But in my judgment, while that was appropriate by itself,
Speaker 1: it was inadequate, and I believe that we should have
Speaker 1: responded in kind to the Russians. We certainly have the
Speaker 1: capacity to conduct such operations ourselves, and I think that
Speaker 1: you can't simply turn the other cheek into circumstance, so
Speaker 1: we simply issue warnings that you have to take action now,
Speaker 1: the President did say we will take action this President Obama.
Speaker 1: Some of it will be public, some private. The problem
Speaker 1: is nothing appeared publicly, and we don't know what happened privately.
Speaker 1: And if you don't do something publicly, then there's no
Speaker 1: way that the American people have to know that something
Speaker 1: is occurrent. President Trump, by contrast, has simply denied the
Speaker 1: Russian activity, said he accepted Putin's uh words on this,
Speaker 1: and continues to praise President puter Now in his latest
Speaker 1: proposal to bring Russia back in to the G seven
Speaker 1: and make it the G eight again, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: the rest of the other G six all were seemed
Speaker 1: to be a gas that well, with the exception of
Speaker 1: the new government in Italy. Yeah, and even walked that
Speaker 1: back yea, because they're trying to undermine those democracies as well.
Speaker 1: In fact, the Russians are more concerned with the European
Speaker 1: democracy than they are with ours, because there were distant
Speaker 1: from them, and they have always wanted a buffer state
Speaker 1: on their western border, and they have memories of Napoleon's invasions,
Speaker 1: they have memories of Hitler's invasion. It's not a figment
Speaker 1: of their imagination. It's a reality, and so they want
Speaker 1: those buffer zones, even though the wars of the century
Speaker 1: would be very different from those of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: None unless it's a human reaction, and so I think
Speaker 1: what we needed to do is responding kind. This goes
Speaker 1: back to my argument about China and trade. The President
Speaker 1: Trump is correct when he says China is abusing the
Speaker 1: world trading system, of which they are now a party.
Speaker 1: The problem is the answer that he's chosen tariffs which
Speaker 1: are hitting our lies is the wrong response. It's as
Speaker 1: though after Pearl Harbor that we invaded Brazil. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: a misdirected response. The way to deal with intellectual property
Speaker 1: actions abuse in China is to affect intellectual property here
Speaker 1: and elsewhere. In other words, make a response that's specific
Speaker 1: to the problem. If they are imposing restraints on let's
Speaker 1: say investments and by financial institutions, then we impose restraints
Speaker 1: on their financial institutions. And as we've seen in the
Speaker 1: case of the company ZTE, we have the power to
Speaker 1: affect Chinese economic activity. Z t E was going into
Speaker 1: bankruptcy when we took the position that they couldn't be involved,
Speaker 1: American producers could not be involved with them, and incredibly enough,
Speaker 1: the President is now rescuing trying to rescue that company.
Speaker 1: Even congressional Republicans are upset about that. Well, he said
Speaker 1: he was going to save manufact action in jobs, and
Speaker 1: he did. We just didn't realize in yes, I mean so,
Speaker 1: so I don't disagree with this premise that that they're
Speaker 1: they're doing things they should be doing, and we should
Speaker 1: be responding to him. The problem is that the response
Speaker 1: is hurting our lies more than it's hurting them, and
Speaker 1: divides the West when we should be united to come
Speaker 1: up with the policy that is targeted, selective and confronts
Speaker 1: the Chinese in the areas where we believe the abuses
Speaker 1: are recurring. It is a confounding strategy, isn't it. We
Speaker 1: look at it, There's never been anything like this as that,
Speaker 1: and and it's it's based on the falsehood. I mean,
Speaker 1: the President cites individual cases of high tariffs in Canada
Speaker 1: and Europe, but the reality is, according to all that
Speaker 1: I've read, is at the average level of terroiffs and
Speaker 1: NITA in the EU are about three and in the
Speaker 1: United States they're a little less than that. So there
Speaker 1: are a relatively modest level of tariffs, although there are
Speaker 1: individual cases on all sides where they're very high, and
Speaker 1: there's are slightly higher than ours, and it would be
Speaker 1: I think a reasonable thing to expect that we could
Speaker 1: get parity even at that low level. But it certainly
Speaker 1: doesn't justify the massive response that we're making now, in
Speaker 1: effect daring them to respond in kind, which they have
Speaker 1: to do for their own domestic political reasons. The flip
Speaker 1: side of that is some of our trade partners that
Speaker 1: do have tariffs complain about our subsidies, especially in the
Speaker 1: world of agriculture. Look at sugar, look at milk, look
Speaker 1: at corn. We have massive subsidies that make it very
Speaker 1: challenging for anybody else to compete with our products overseas.
Speaker 1: If we're going to have a whole conversation about tariffs
Speaker 1: and trade wars, shouldn't all of this be on on
Speaker 1: the table, very expensive subsidies to big agricultural producers. That's
Speaker 1: why we established the World Trade Organization with rules, procedures
Speaker 1: and dispute resolution mechanisms to deal with all of those issues.
Speaker 1: And what the President is doing is undermining the trading
Speaker 1: system that the United States helped and lead the way
Speaker 1: to create. Let me take you back in history to
Speaker 1: the very last days of December nine. The tide of
Speaker 1: the Second World War had just changed. Decisive Allied victories
Speaker 1: in Midway, in North Africa and in Stalingrad in November
Speaker 1: of that year had marked the maximum expand by the
Speaker 1: Axis powers, and so from then on their powers contracted.
Speaker 1: A small group of American officials went to London to
Speaker 1: meet secretly the British counterparts to begin to prepare for
Speaker 1: the massive reconstruction that they knew would be necessary when
Speaker 1: the war ended. Their central goal was to establish a
Speaker 1: World Trade Organization, because they believed that trade wars had
Speaker 1: led to real wars. They believed that the protectionist reaction
Speaker 1: by the United States and other countries to the deep
Speaker 1: procession of the late nineteen twenties had pushed the world
Speaker 1: into depression and had created the conditions that led to
Speaker 1: the rise of fascism in Europe. In particular Mussolini and Hitler,
Speaker 1: both of whom had made efforts to come to power.
Speaker 1: Mussolini had achieved that had not in the early in
Speaker 1: the very earliest years of nineteen twenty, and so that's
Speaker 1: what led ultimately to the World Trade Organization. The treaty
Speaker 1: was signed in seven by fifty seven countries, but because
Speaker 1: the Senate was controlled by Republicans as they disliked President Truman,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't ratify the treaty. Forty five years later and
Speaker 1: nine presidents having participated in negotiations, in the last legislative
Speaker 1: act of my tenure Centi Majori leader, the Senate ratified
Speaker 1: the creation of the World Trade Organization. Now it made sense.
Speaker 1: It has helped the United States achieve political, economic, military,
Speaker 1: increasingly cultural dominance in the world. Of course, it's had
Speaker 1: some cost to it, but American alliances with our allies
Speaker 1: have not been harmful to American interests overall. On balance,
Speaker 1: they have been beneficial to us. That's my biggest disagreement
Speaker 1: with President Trump. He says we're a piggy bank that
Speaker 1: every everybody robbed. He said, everybody takes advantage of us.
Speaker 1: But the fact is it's been mutual. We have derived
Speaker 1: an enormous benefit from the creation of institutions from the
Speaker 1: European Union, from NATO, from the World Bank, from the
Speaker 1: United Nations. Although many in our country revive all these institutions.
Speaker 1: If we think the world is unsafe, now, how unsafe
Speaker 1: would it be if there was no European Union, if
Speaker 1: there was no NATO, if there was no United Nations,
Speaker 1: the dominant power of the United States would be called
Speaker 1: upon to solve every problem alone, and it would be
Speaker 1: a massive drain on our resources, military, political, economic, and other.
Speaker 1: And so we have to do the enlightened thing, which
Speaker 1: is these are all human institutions, and therefore they are imperfect.
Speaker 1: They all acquire bureaucracy and bad habits. We should do
Speaker 1: all we can to streamline, improve them, to deal with
Speaker 1: the problems that they have as they come up, but
Speaker 1: not to abolish them, because we and others benefit from
Speaker 1: their existence. Fascinating, fascinating stuff. Let's talk about another longstanding
Speaker 1: policy that seems to be up in the air, and
Speaker 1: that's the massive set of changes with US immigration. What
Speaker 1: are we doing and what's the long term lasting effect
Speaker 1: from these uh, these big changes that are taking place.
Speaker 1: Everybody in America came from somewhere else. Human beings first
Speaker 1: appeared on Earth about three thousand years ago, and they
Speaker 1: spread slowly around the globe. It was not until about
Speaker 1: sixteen thousand years ago that humans first entered the American
Speaker 1: continents by crossing the land Bridge over what is now
Speaker 1: the Bearing straight into Alaska. Gradually, over the following six
Speaker 1: and years, they spread slowly across north, Central and Latin
Speaker 1: America and became what we know as the Native Americans.
Speaker 1: About five years ago, the Europeans came across the Atlantic
Speaker 1: from Europe, and for centuries the British, the French, the Spanish,
Speaker 1: the Dutch competed for control of North America among themselves
Speaker 1: and with the Native Americans. Ultimately the British prevailed. The
Speaker 1: United States was established. Later Canada was established as independent countries,
Speaker 1: and the same followed over a longer period of time
Speaker 1: in Central and Latin America. The negative attitudes of demonization,
Speaker 1: of thinking of people as other was there from the beginning.
Speaker 1: The Spanish hated the French, the French hated the better British.
Speaker 1: They all fought the Dutch Wall Street. The name comes
Speaker 1: from the wall built there by the Dutch settlers who
Speaker 1: settled New Amsterdam, and they were building it to protect
Speaker 1: themselves against the British, not against the Native Americans. And
Speaker 1: that persisted for a long time in our history. Now,
Speaker 1: negative attitudes about quote others are a part of human history,
Speaker 1: and it's existed in our country somewhat offset once our
Speaker 1: country was created by the need for people to fill
Speaker 1: this vast continent. But the first negative immigration laws were
Speaker 1: not passed until America was a hundred years old. The
Speaker 1: Chinese Exclusion Act passed in eighty two to keep out
Speaker 1: Chinese because a lot of them had come to help
Speaker 1: work on the Transcontinental River. Then they were more passed.
Speaker 1: Now the truth is the reality. No reasonable American thinks
Speaker 1: that we can back to the days of open immigration.
Speaker 1: We can't let come into our country anybody who wants
Speaker 1: to come. There are too many tens of millions of
Speaker 1: people around the world who want to come, which is
Speaker 1: flattering to us. Think about this for a fact, people
Speaker 1: who say, well, China's the dominant rise in country. Have
Speaker 1: you ever heard of anybody risking their life to break
Speaker 1: into China? Only once two North Korean guys who had
Speaker 1: escaped from a concentration camp swam the river to China. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: tens of millions want to come here, and they want
Speaker 1: to come here because they see freedom and opportunity. You've
Speaker 1: never met or heard of an immigrant who said I
Speaker 1: came to America because You've got the best cruise missiles.
Speaker 1: They come here because they think we have freedom and opportunity.
Speaker 1: So we need a balance. We need a rational system
Speaker 1: for treating people fairly, living up the ideals of our country,
Speaker 1: and to keep the benefits coming. Think about these facts.
Speaker 1: In two thousand sixteen, seven Americans received Nobel Prizes. Six
Speaker 1: of them were immigrants. Think about this fact. Three of
Speaker 1: the most successful companies in the world are Apple, Amazon,
Speaker 1: and Google. Apple was created by Steve Jobs, whose father
Speaker 1: was born in Syria. Amazon was created by Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 1: whose adoptive father was born in Cuba, and one of
Speaker 1: the co founders of Google was Sergey ben who himself
Speaker 1: was born in Russia. Ask yourself, would we be a
Speaker 1: better country if they had not been admitted? And ask
Speaker 1: yourself also, what are the chances that if he'd lived
Speaker 1: his life in Syria, Steve Jobs would have created Apple,
Speaker 1: or Jeff Bezos in Cuba or Sir Gey Bryn in Russia.
Speaker 1: Genius knows no language, no religion, no race. It can
Speaker 1: be found wherever they're human beings. But it tends to
Speaker 1: flourish where there's freedom and opportunity, and that's the United States.
Speaker 1: We let everybody in. So we need a rational, fair
Speaker 1: system to bring people in. I don't object to the
Speaker 1: President's stay saying we want to try to get people
Speaker 1: with skills. Of course we should, but that should not
Speaker 1: be used an excuse to eliminate immigration altogether, because you
Speaker 1: never know what's coming in the second generation, as we
Speaker 1: saw in the case of Steve Jobs and many many others.
Speaker 1: My mother was an immigrant. She could not read or write.
Speaker 1: She spent fifty years working in textile mills on the
Speaker 1: night shift. My father was the offense son of him
Speaker 1: because he had no education. He was a janitor at
Speaker 1: a local school. So I, one generation removed, was lucky
Speaker 1: to get an education and go on to become the
Speaker 1: majority leader of the United States Senate. You don't know
Speaker 1: now who among these people coming in possesses a spark
Speaker 1: of genius, or whose child will possess a spark of genius.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you what a story about a guy
Speaker 1: named Ji Mitchell, not me, the guy I called the
Speaker 1: real George Mitchell. It began in the hills of rural
Speaker 1: Greece over a hundred years ago. There was a goat hurder,
Speaker 1: a young guy, young man, a goat hurd named savas
Speaker 1: Paris Givopolis. He wanted something better, so he came to America.
Speaker 1: He got a job on the railroad. He was a
Speaker 1: good worker. At the end of the first week when
Speaker 1: they paid him, the paymaster said to him, you're a
Speaker 1: good work if we want you to stay. But nobody
Speaker 1: can speller pronounced your name. You've got to change your name.
Speaker 1: So Sava said to the paymaster, what's your name. Paymaster
Speaker 1: was an Irish guy, said Mike Mitchell. Sava said, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be my name now, So Mike Mitchell. After
Speaker 1: he finished working on the railroad, moved to Galveston, Texas.
Speaker 1: He opened a shoe shine shop. He shined shoes for
Speaker 1: a living. He had a son he named but George Mitchell.
Speaker 1: The sun was smart, ambitious. He went to Texas a
Speaker 1: and m He got a degree in engineering. He then
Speaker 1: became an extremely wealthy person in New Oilyn gas industry,
Speaker 1: and he invented fracking, horizontal drilling, and those things that
Speaker 1: have resulted in the United States now being the largest
Speaker 1: energy producer in the world. The son of a goat
Speaker 1: hurder from the hills of Greece who changed his name
Speaker 1: because nobody could pronounce a smell less spellless name that's
Speaker 1: the story American. I'll say one thing to you. Long after,
Speaker 1: long after I've been forgotten, people will remember the man
Speaker 1: I call the real George Mitchell, because he changed the
Speaker 1: course of history. You can argue about the benefits of disadvantages.
Speaker 1: There's got to be their problems arrives with that. But
Speaker 1: eight American presidents promised to make America energy independent. Not
Speaker 1: one of them could do it. But the son of
Speaker 1: an illiterate goat Hurder from the hills of Greece did
Speaker 1: what they couldn't do. The real George Mitchell made America
Speaker 1: energy independent. That that's an amazing story. So let's get
Speaker 1: to our favorite questions. So tell us about some of
Speaker 1: your favorite books. What do you enjoy reading fiction, nonfiction? What? What?
Speaker 1: What is your some of your favorite reading materials. One
Speaker 1: of the most influential persons in my life was my
Speaker 1: high school English teacher. I was a junior. It's a
Speaker 1: wonderful woman named Elviral Whitten. Posture straight as an arrow,
Speaker 1: diction perfect, one of the most brilliant kind women I've
Speaker 1: ever met. One day she called me in after school.
Speaker 1: She said, what do you read? And I didn't quite
Speaker 1: compihend the question, I said, what do you mean. You said, well, books,
Speaker 1: what books do you read? And I really didn't read
Speaker 1: anything other than what was needed for school. So she
Speaker 1: opened her desk, pulled out a book and handed it
Speaker 1: to me and said, I'd like you to read this
Speaker 1: and come back and tell me about it. She said,
Speaker 1: it won't want to fect your grade one way or
Speaker 1: the other, but I think you should start reading books.
Speaker 1: The book was a small one. It's called the novella
Speaker 1: The Moon Is Down By, written by John Steinbecker, story
Speaker 1: fictional account of the Nazi occupation uh in, Norway during
Speaker 1: the Second World War. I read it that night. I
Speaker 1: was fascinated. I took it back the next day because
Speaker 1: I loved her. I wanted to impress her, and so
Speaker 1: I gave a book report oral that's almost longer than
Speaker 1: the written book. She handed me another book. I read that.
Speaker 1: That took up my whole junior year, and at the
Speaker 1: end of the year she said to me, you're on
Speaker 1: your own. I want you to pick out the next
Speaker 1: book you're gonna What was the second book? The sacond
Speaker 1: book was called Parnassis on Wheels. It was a story
Speaker 1: about a mobile library. Quite an interesting story, actually, uh,
Speaker 1: and then everything I was. I felt badly when she
Speaker 1: said him on my own because I enjoyed my inner
Speaker 1: action with it. But I went to the library, the
Speaker 1: school library, the public library, and finally I kept trying
Speaker 1: to think, what would she think about this? I read
Speaker 1: three books called the Bounty Trilogy. Oh sure you need
Speaker 1: The Bounty is the first one, Men against the Sea
Speaker 1: is the second one. In pitt Gairns Island is the
Speaker 1: third one. So to me, those are the most memorable
Speaker 1: books I've ever And of course I loved them. I
Speaker 1: couldn't get over, especially Men against the Sea, which is
Speaker 1: not widely known. It's a tremendous dramatic story human endurance
Speaker 1: and courage and strength. Uh. And then I started reading.
Speaker 1: And I've read mostly history since then, and that's pretty
Speaker 1: much what I read now. And I've had a good
Speaker 1: pleasure of meeting some terrific writers. Uh. I At a
Speaker 1: conference that I spoke at, I met Harlan Coben, who
Speaker 1: was one of the best known crime writers in the world.
Speaker 1: What what so you call a title of one of
Speaker 1: Harlan Cobn's books? Uh? God, she just had one stand up.
Speaker 1: I think it is a name that I'm not true,
Speaker 1: but he's just published on about two years ago. You
Speaker 1: mentioned Against the Sea, and I want to mention one
Speaker 1: other guy was a guy named uh Chris Uh. Oh God,
Speaker 1: I'm blanking on it now. Uh. He's a good friend.
Speaker 1: He's written several books. He wrote in the Garden of
Speaker 1: the Beasts about the rise the Nazi's Chris Larson. Also,
Speaker 1: I'm now reading his book about the sinking of the Lusitania. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's a He's a terrific, terrific writer and has become
Speaker 1: a good Chris Larson Eric Eric last I'm sorry, Yes,
Speaker 1: yes I got the last name. Not that, not that
Speaker 1: I remember it, but we were dead wake is that? Oh?
Speaker 1: He did Devil in the White City. My wife loved that.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, he's a terrific to writer. Both of
Speaker 1: them great. I've written five books, but I'm an amateur.
Speaker 1: I think these guys are really professional. So another great,
Speaker 1: great friend who I've read all of his books, uh
Speaker 1: is Colin McCann. He's an Irish American, written great books. Uh,
Speaker 1: Let the great worlds, Let the world spin. He wrote
Speaker 1: one called trans Atlantic in which he featured me. So
Speaker 1: how can I help? But liking him. Oh, he's got
Speaker 1: a run of a run of books. Let the Great World,
Speaker 1: Spin Dancer, trans Atlantic, the Book of men Um you
Speaker 1: mentioned Against the Sea, and Endurance. Did you ever get
Speaker 1: around to reading the book Endurance about the Shackleford journey
Speaker 1: to Antarctica if you like those sort of just astonishing
Speaker 1: what these people went through and how they managed to survive?
Speaker 1: Is that by Eric Larson Um Let me see who
Speaker 1: wrote that. There's a funny story to the book, because
Speaker 1: it kind of came and went in the fifties, and
Speaker 1: then it was reissued decades later and then suddenly became
Speaker 1: a suddenly became a best seller, like it just happened
Speaker 1: to be wrong time Um, Endurance, Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by
Speaker 1: Alfred Lanson. I don't know that. I've also read a
Speaker 1: great many books about the origins of human beings, the
Speaker 1: history of civilization, and so forth. I I like reading
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. I read a lot of that.
Speaker 1: Any any titles you want to suggest, well, some my
Speaker 1: way out of date. As a young man, I read
Speaker 1: the entire I think it's about nine volume history Civilization
Speaker 1: by a man named Will Durant. Ariel Durant actually the
Speaker 1: best is the short version of all. The short version
Speaker 1: is called The Lessons of History. Yes, it's only about
Speaker 1: a hundred pages long. It's absolutely brilliant written years ago. Uh,
Speaker 1: there was a great professor first at Princeton, and he
Speaker 1: was at the University of California, Santa Cruz named Paige Smith.
Speaker 1: He wrote a two volume history of John Adams. Then
Speaker 1: he wrote about a A. I think it's about seven
Speaker 1: volumes of It's a social history of the United States,
Speaker 1: it's not a political history. Absolutely brilliantly written, fascinating. The
Speaker 1: single most interesting book I've ever read is his one
Speaker 1: of his volumes on the period of reconstruction in the
Speaker 1: United States following the Civil War, filled with information about
Speaker 1: I think most Americans aren't aware of of what happened
Speaker 1: during the period of reconstruction. Quite quite fascinating. And and
Speaker 1: our favorite final two questions. If a recent college grad
Speaker 1: came up to you and said, I'm interested in a
Speaker 1: career in public policy of government service, what sort of
Speaker 1: advice would you give them? I would encourage them. It's
Speaker 1: very tough, but it's by far the most rewarding thing
Speaker 1: I've ever done. I I believe that human beings are
Speaker 1: wired to seek what we define as success, wealth, the
Speaker 1: acquisition of property and other things, status, recognition. But the
Speaker 1: more of those things you get, the more you realize
Speaker 1: that in reality, life is a never ending search for respect,
Speaker 1: first and most important. Self respect hardest to get, most
Speaker 1: important than the respect of others, and I think the
Speaker 1: way you get them is by service to others. And
Speaker 1: I tell graduates all the time if you are lucky.
Speaker 1: If you are lucky, you will first succeed in what
Speaker 1: I would define as traditional terms, and then you will
Speaker 1: figure out that there's got to be more to life
Speaker 1: than this, and you will find in your life some
Speaker 1: objective that engages all of your physical and spiritual might,
Speaker 1: that is larger than your self interests, and that helps others.
Speaker 1: M quite fascinating. And our final question, what do you
Speaker 1: know about government and politics and public policy making today
Speaker 1: that you wish you knew when you began thirty or
Speaker 1: forty years ago. Every day of my life has been
Speaker 1: a learning experience. And I think the single greatest change
Speaker 1: in American attitudes that is required and that our leaders
Speaker 1: should be encouraging, is to end the notion that education
Speaker 1: begins when you end a kindergarten and ends when you
Speaker 1: graduate from high school of college. The explosion of knowledge,
Speaker 1: the advances of science and technology are overwhelming, and knowledge,
Speaker 1: its acquisition and use must be a lifelong experience. You
Speaker 1: can't think that you've ended your learning period when you
Speaker 1: got your degree. In fact, you're just beginning. You've got
Speaker 1: to keep up with it. And and that I think
Speaker 1: is so necessary in the age of technological change through
Speaker 1: which we're living. You can see it in ordinary life.
Speaker 1: I've finished with this humorous story. I have a son
Speaker 1: who's in college twenty years old, a daughter who's seventeen.
Speaker 1: I walked into the den about a year ago. My
Speaker 1: son has air plugs on the television. The television is
Speaker 1: on and his computer screen is on, and I said,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? He said, I'm studying. That's an
Speaker 1: example of listening to the airpugs, watching the working, watching television.
Speaker 1: You have to keep learning every people should think, ever,
Speaker 1: when you wake up every morning, what am I going
Speaker 1: to learn today? Absolutely fascinating. We have been speaking with
Speaker 1: Senator George Mitchell. UH. If you enjoy this conversation, well,
Speaker 1: then be sure and look up an intro down an
Speaker 1: inch on Apple iTunes, UH, and you could see any
Speaker 1: of the other two hundred plus conversations we've had. We
Speaker 1: love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at
Speaker 1: m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I would be
Speaker 1: remiss if I did not thank the crack staff who
Speaker 1: helps us put together these conversations each week. Um Medina
Speaker 1: Pomona is our producer, Slash audio engineer. Taylor Riggs is
Speaker 1: our booker. Michael bat Nick is our research director. I'm
Speaker 1: Barry Reholts. You've been listening to Master's in Business on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio