Podcast: What to Worry About in 2019 with Jane Harman

TRANSCRIPT: What to Worry About in 2019 with Jane Harman

Jane Harman:

We've solved all the easy problems. They're all hard, and they require bipartisan solutions. I'm proud to be bipartisan.

Ian Bremmer:

Hi, I'm Ian Bremmer, and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast, an audio version of what you can find on public television, where I analyze global topics, sit down with big guests, and make use of small puppets.

This week, I sit down with the first female director of what's been an all-boys club. Former US Congresswoman Jane Harman is here. She took time away from her job atop the Woodrow Wilson Center to talk national security, women in Congress, as well as that old dream of bipartisanship. She says these days, that's a dirty word. Let's get to it.

Announcer:

The GZERO World is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company, places clients' needs first by providing responsive, relevant, and customized solutions. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more.

Ian Bremmer:

Jane Harman, president and CEO of the Wilson Center and nine-term congresswoman, the 36th in California, Harvard, JD, all sorts of other things. Great to be with you.

Jane Harman:

It's my tennis prowess.

Ian Bremmer:

It is your tennis prowess.

Jane Harman:

That's my thing.

Ian Bremmer:

That could be the most important thing, but maybe I'll start with Congress. What's the thing that people don't understand about how life will or will not change with this new Congress?

Jane Harman:

Well, at least at the moment, Congress is a re-election machine. It's not a policy machine. I think people don't get it that the Congress they may remember somewhere vaguely in the history books, that has played a role as the Article 1 branch of government. Our Constitution has three branches. Congress is one, the Executive Branch is two, and the Courts are three. That old Article 1 branch of government doesn't do Article 1 things any more. It just helps each party get re-elected. And that, to me, is a real tragedy for the country.

Ian Bremmer:

What led to that?

Jane Harman:

Probably many things, but the technology now used in campaigns had a lot to do with it. What was exciting to me about serving in Congress was the chance to work on policy. That's why I loved Congress when it was a policy machine. There is still glimmers of hope. What happened recently in Congress on Yemen was exciting in the Senate.

Bernie Sanders:

Let us go forward today and tell the world that The United States of America will not continue to be part of the worst humanitarian disaster on the face of the Earth.

Speaker 2:

The motion is agreed to.

Jane Harman:

A bipartisan majority, look at that word, bipartisan, a majority of the Senate, denied the use of US military aid to prosecute the war in Yemen.

Ian Bremmer:

Leaving aside the fact that Congress does less than it used to, fewer policies are made, it's harder to reach bipartisan consensus, what are the places that you would expect to see change with a few more Republicans on the Senate side, with a lot more Democrats and a majority on the House side?

Jane Harman:

Well, I hope that the Democratic majority in the House will be about more than impeachment. In fact, I think impeachment is the wrong place to start, and I know that Speaker Pelosi doesn't want to start with impeachment. I would hope that the Democratic majority in the House would do investigations where necessary, and some are, but also would come up with, and this will be hard because there's a diverse caucus there, come up with some program to lead the country forward.

Ian Bremmer:

How do you resist calls to begin impeachment proceedings, given the amount and breadth of information coming down around obstruction of justice, around lying on engagement with the Russians, of all these things?

Jane Harman:

Well, I've seen the movie. I was a staffer in the Senate in the early '70s, 200 years ago, when Richard Nixon was impeached by the House on a bipartisan basis.

Richard Nixon:

Our entire focus should be on the great issue, the peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.

Speaker 3:

George, George, George, come on.

Richard Nixon:

Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

Jane Harman:

He resigned before the Senate could begin conviction proceedings. I mean, if you're impeached, that doesn't mean you sound guilty, that's the indictment, and then the Senate does the conviction. I was also a member in the House in the late '90s when Bill Clinton was impeached. I voted against the impeachment counts. Not that I excused him for his conduct, but I didn't think it rose to a level of a high crime or misdemeanor.

Speaker 4:

At this point, there are three votes shy and we have every reason to expect it's at 217, and at 218...

Speaker 5:

There it is.

Speaker 4:

There it is. President William Jefferson Clinton is now the second president in the history of the United States to be impeached.

Jane Harman:

And then he was... the Senate failed to convict, but it certainly did go to the Senate. But business stopped, and I think there are crucial things to do in this country, which is why I am for, and I think Leader Pelosi is for, beginning serious investigations in a number of committees. The Committee on Oversight, Elijah Cummings is very capable. The House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, who is leaving the job I had as ranking member to become chairman, is very capable.

Jane Harman:

Jerry Nadler, who was a classmate of mine, elected in '92 on the Judiciary Committee, I think is responsible too. Have investigations of the right pieces of this and make sure that the House is doing its oversight job, but put impeachment off.

Ian Bremmer:

What is the level that you think findings of those investigations reach a point where you have to actually proceed with impeachment?

Jane Harman:

We'll know it when we see it.

Ian Bremmer:

It's like pornography.

Jane Harman:

It's like pornography. We'll know when we see it. And oh by the way, those investigations should to a maximum extent be bipartisan. You would think that certainly...

Ian Bremmer:

Is that remotely plausible given what we've seen on both sides?

Jane Harman:

I think it's plausible. I think it's remotely plausible, and I think it depends on how the new chairmen, I guess they're all men in these cases, behave possibly.

Ian Bremmer:

Now while you and I are talking, elsewhere in this building there's an event going on that is debating whether or not we are in a Cold War, we the Americans, with the Chinese. Your answer to that is?

Jane Harman:

No.

Ian Bremmer:

No. And we are not because?

Jane Harman:

We are in a dodgy patch with the Chinese.

Ian Bremmer:

We call them a strategic competitor now.

Jane Harman:

Yes. Well, they are a strategic competitor. In fact, our new defense strategy says that our competition with Russia and China is what we need to focus on even more than counter-terrorism. By labeling it that way, you make it worse. That we are in a strategic competition. There are possibilities that we could agree on concepts. That's something Henry Kissinger recently said here. We could agree on a way to work toward those concepts. But automatically saying we're at war, just like saying we were, or are, in a war on terror, is not a frame that encourages a good outcome.

Ian Bremmer:

What's a concept that we can work on?

Jane Harman:

Trade. There has to be a way for us to trade with China, a huge market for US AG and products that our consumers want to buy at low cost. For China, we are a huge market for all the goods they produce. There has to be a way forward on trade.

Ian Bremmer:

Are you happy that the Trump administration is taking this issue up, is pushing the Chinese in areas that the Americans find their behavior to be unacceptable?

Jane Harman:

Yes. I think intellectual property theft and demands that our companies have to basically share their trade secrets with China if they want to do business in China are wrong, and they should have been called on it years ago. Calling them is right. I just think the way we're trying to process this is wrong. Threatening increased tariffs already has had a consequence, which is that the US auto industry is closing plants. Maybe people don't want to buy more sedans. Okay, they want something else, but the price of parts for cars has gone up.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, the CEO of GM in closing those plants, Mary Barra, she said that it wasn't because of the Trump decisions on tariffs. You're suggesting that that might be for public consumption?

Jane Harman:

I don't know what her reasons were, but certainly the cost of goods has gone up and I think consumer taste has changed.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, you said we're in a rough patch with the Chinese. You could make an argument that we're kind of in a rough patch globally. I don't just mean the United States, but I mean, given the asymmetries with Russia, the challenges of China, the weakness in Europe, the difficulties in the Middle East.

Ian Bremmer:

If you were to make a suggestion of one or two things the Americans could do that are not remotely plausible, but that are plausible, that would make a difference, that would make it feel like we were making progress, that actually this environment was going to get better as opposed to more rough patch, what would that be?

Jane Harman:

Well, I'd do a couple of things. They can be implausible. You already said that, right?

Ian Bremmer:

I know. I wanted them to be plausible.

Jane Harman:

Okay. How about hug our allies?

Ian Bremmer:

You mean physically?

Jane Harman:

I mean...

Ian Bremmer:

You and I could start this.

Jane Harman:

Well, yeah.

Ian Bremmer:

Make it a road show.

Jane Harman:

We could hug our allies and work with them to revitalize international institutions.

Ian Bremmer:

If we start adding up a whole bunch of policies that we nominally support and believe in, but have no intention of really doing anything towards, the Russians must leave Ukraine, Assad must go, there must be a two-state solution for Israel-Palestine, at what point do you say to yourself as someone with your kind of background and experience, "It's hurting the Americans to not be credible. We need to just be honest about what we're actually doing here?" Do you have a view on that?

Jane Harman:

I actually like that formulation. We can't do everything. I agree with that, but what we can do is live our values. We're struggling with that a little bit at the moment. I mean, I think carrying kids away from parents at borders is not one of those values. Blocking people from five or seven countries from coming here just because they come from five or seven countries is not one of our values.

Ian Bremmer:

Well, a lot of political leaders, and not just in the United States on so many of these issues, seem to be incapable of focusing on the things that are going to affect their kids. It's not about 20 or 40 years out, it's about an electoral cycle that's a few months or a couple of years out.

Jane Harman:

That's when I said when we started this interview, Congress is a reelection machine. The election cycle in the House is two years. The election cycle in the Senate is six years, but you have to raise umpteen bazillion dollars to run a Senate campaign. Actually now you have to do for a House campaign too. There's all this independent money floating around. So if that's what you focus on, it's like quarterly earnings. You can't even focus on your kids. You can't even see your kids because you're so busy dialing for dollars.

Jane Harman:

It's a race to the bottom. The history of Congress is a noble history. Sure, there've been big fights, got it, but it's the Article 1 branch of government. It's the first branch. It's what the founders thought would be, it seems to me, the engine of our Democratic republic. I was really proud to be elected there. It's hard to get elected. I won 17 races for the House, including primaries. And in one of my primaries, I was called a traitor and a spy. I mean, this tells you what my own party thought.

Ian Bremmer:

They were onto you early, Jane.

Jane Harman:

I was also called an agent of Communist China by a Democrat, but hey.

Ian Bremmer:

That's why you said they're not in a Cold War with us, of course.

Jane Harman:

There you go.

Ian Bremmer:

Now we understand.

Jane Harman:

The dream of an effective Congress empowers me. We've solved all the easy problems. They're all hard, and they require bipartisan solutions. I'm proud to be bipartisan. The US can do so much better. We could do it tomorrow if we decided and we had the political will to do it.

Ian Bremmer:

Jane Harman, thank you very much.

Ian Bremmer:

That's our show this week. We'll be right back here next week same place, same time. Unless you're watching on social media, in which case wherever you happen to be, don't miss it. In the meantime, check us out at gzeromedia.com.

Announcer:

The GZERO World is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company, places clients' needs first by providing responsive, relevant and customized solutions. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more.

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