George Mitchell Discusses the Mechanisms of American Politics

a while. His his curriculum vitae is just immense. Rather than go over that, I'm just gonna say, if you're at all interested in the state of politics today and how we got a here, what we should be focusing on, what policymaking is really about, then sit down, strap yourself in for a master class in American politics and policy. With no further ado, my conversation with Senator George Mitchell. I'm Barry Ridholts. You're listening to Master's in Business on

Bloomberg Radio. I have an extra special guess this week. His name is Senator George Mitchell. He was the majority leader of the U. S. Senate from has a rich and full career in politics and I can't even begin to read read you his his curriculum vitae in the army for two years, goes to Georgetown Law School, graduates in nineteen sixty one. He is the assistant to Senator Ed Edmonds Muskie before he has appointed U. S. Attorney

for the District in Maine by President Carter. He served as a federal judge principal architect of a number of peace treaties in Northern Ireland, in the Middle East. In baseball, He was also chairman of the Walt Disney Company. Senator George Mitchell, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thanks for having me. So you have a storied background, but I have to go back at least to the beginning of your legal career. You graduate Archtown Law in nineteen sixty one. You practice

law for about a dozen years. What what sort of legal practice did you have? I began with the Department of Justice. UH, served there for a couple of years. Then I was hired by Senator Muskie to be on his staff here in the U. S. Senate in Washington. From there I left to join the law firm in Maine in x and I practiced there for about a dozen years. UH. Like everything else in life, the practice of law was much different than that is now, far less specialization. So I did a wide range of things,

including I began increasingly to become involved as a trial lawyer. UH. And I participated also as an assistant local what we call county attorney. So I tried dozens and dozens of cases, criminal, civil, everything, mostly criminal. I did do some civil war and then I became the U. S. Attorney and there I tried a very large number of criminal cases as well. You're appointed by Jimmy Carter, you serve as U. S. Attorney for a couple of years. Somewhere in there, I recall

reading a brief stint as a federal judge. Is that right? That's right. I was appointed a federal judge when the Congress enacted legislation to increase the number of federal judges in Maine. We had had since the state's creation in eighteen twenty only one federal judge, and uh that was double to two. And I became the second federal judge, only the twelfth and the whole history of the state.

And then there's a um mid term opening in the Senate, and you're appointed to the U. S. Senate by Governor Joseph Brennan in nineteen eighty and you run for election in two and when by a pretty substate intel margin. I did win by a substantial margin, but for most of the race. I was behind by a substantial model. Very deeply etched in my memory is little over a year before the election when the headline news in a large daily newspaper was that I was trailing my opponent

by thirty six percentage points in the general election. And at that time I was threatened with a primary election and I was behind in that race. Okay, so the come come from behind kid? How how did you end up closing that giant gap? What was Were you just less known to the voters or what was the big disparity? It was a combination of factors. First, the primary challenge never materialized, so I ended up getting the nomination without a contest. And then it was they head to head

race for over a year. We had a lot of public appearances together. We had six televised debates and dates. We barely do that anymore. No, that's right. Well, it was my opponent who challenged me to the debates, and as the incumbent, I accepted them. Uh, And gradually, over time, I think I became better known and the tide slowly changed in my favor. I ended up pointing by a comfortable margin of the vote. So you get elected and fairly quickly you rise to the role of Senate majority leader.

How did that happen? I was very fortunate. Uh. I was named the chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee for the nine six elections. Uh. That's a position that each party has. You helped candidates trning for office. So there's some influence in some power that goes well. There is if you do well. And we were very fortunate in the year. Although President Reagan was then in his second termam a really at the peak of his popularity.

In the election of X we gained eleven seats and went from being the minority party to the majority party. Midterm elections often helps the party out of power. Will come back to that in a bit. So we were talking about elections, we're talking about how things have changed, the modern era of social media and little bubbles that people are in. How does that affect politics today. It's

had a dramatic effect. Really, like the rest of life in general, you can't think of politics is something separate from the rest of our lives because it's affected by

the same influences that work our family. All of our lives are and as we've seen the dramatic changes in human life, brought about through the technological advancements of recent years, the creation of social media, the beginning of cable news services, the increasing polarization of the media itself, which both influences and is influenced by those attitudes in public So, uh, serving in public office now is much different than it was when I was there. Running for public office is

even more different. Let's talk a little bit about your background in international diplomacies, and we should begin with Northern Ireland. You a special envoy there for six years. You helped negotiate a number of UM resolutions to the conflict there. How did you get the parties to the table over a five year span. I shared three separate sets of discussions.

The main negotiation lasted about two years. Uh. Interestingly, there were ten political parties in Northern Ireland and the two governments, so there were twelve parties and all to the negotiation. Not once ever was I able to get all twelve into the same room at the same time. Somebody had walked out, somebody had been evicted, somebody didn't like something that day, so we never got everybody together. As a result of which I did a lot of what I

would call moving negotiation. I would go to their offices individually and see them one group at a time. I would have meetings with two of them or six of them. Uh. Once in a while we had most of them there, but it was very difficult because of the long standing

hostility and mistrust. In the end, UH, to their great credit, the politicallys of Northern Ireland, who had spent their lives in conflict, H took a great risk personal, physical risk, political risk by entering into an agreement which pleased to say. Today this year marks the twentieth anniversary of it, and the piece is held. They remain divided, there are great

differences of opinion. The government is not now functioning because of internal disagreement, but the violence has largely ended, and to me, that's a significant accomplishment, I'll say so. So the issue of the separate Northern Ireland politics sort of

reared its head again with the Brexit vote. You know, there was a vote previous, Scotland and Ireland vote to stay in the United Kingdom and then they're both very much in favor of the EU and then suddenly there's this Brexit vote and everybody seems to be surprised by it. How do you look at the political situation in the

UK and how significant is the Russian interference there. We keep reading about that the Brexit vote taken by the people of the United Kingdom was democratically taken and therefore must be respected. But I believe personally the it will prove to be an historic mistake for the people of the United Kingdom themselves and also and in particularly the

people of Ireland. Not just Northern Ireland, which is a part of the United Kingdom along with England, Scotland and Wales, but the Republic of Ireland, which the economy of which is deeply integrated into that of the United Kingdom. Keep in mind, Ireland has five million people. The United Kingdom has sixty million people. The United Kingdom is a large,

powerful nation. Ireland is heavily dependent on the economic integration with the UK, and so the people of Ireland risk being those most hurt by the UK decision to leave the European Union. Now how much that how much Brexit will be hard or soft, will they remain in a customed union, will it be a complete break? All those are now being decided literally as we speak in the British element and elsewhere, But I think it is an important matter for all the people of Ireland north and South,

and all of the UK as well. I hope very much that the Prime Minister of the UK takes the position that they will accept what people refer to as a soft Brexit, not completely set of their relations with the European Union, and that's very much in the United States interests as well. Is there any chance that cooler heads prevail and everybody wakes up one day and says this is a terrible idea, let's let's not do this.

I think that's not likely. At the time, it appears that the UK is going to move towards some form of change in its status within the European Union. I hope that both the leaders of the UK and the leaders of the European Union will negotiate in good faith to minimize the adverse impact, both economically and politically. A strong European Union, in my judgment, has been a major contributor to peace, stability and prosperity, now just in Europe, but around the world. So let's let's talk a little

bit about peace around the world. The summit on on the Korean Peninsula that took place in Singapore. What are your thoughts about this. We must all hope and pray that it succeeds, because that is one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the world. But let's keep in mind that the United States position, as enunciated repeatedly by Sector State Pompeo, including as recently as a day ago, is

that there must be complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization. The statement issued today by the President and Kim Jong un omitted the words verifiable and irreversible. Indeed, it was not a new statement. It referred simply to the statement made months ago in April by Kim Jong un that they would agree to de nuclearization. So, as of now, the two

parties have different interpretations of what does denuclearization mean. That must be negotiated out, and hopefully the administration will insist on the American definition being accepted. The second major point to be negotiated is the pace of change. The President has said it's going to happen variously. He's used the words immediately, right away, fast, quickly. Kim Jong un has said it is a process that will take a long time and that it should be phased out over a

long period of time. I think that the President's words in this respect are somewhat over optimistic. I think it is going to take time, But the question is how much time and how will it be verified? How can we know for certain they're doing what they say they're doing. Keep in mind that no North Korean, not Kim Jong On any other, has ever used the words verifiable and irreversible. So we heard um the US has given up war exercises in the China Sea. There's talks about relieving some

of the embargoes that around Korea. We've given them a lot of prestige just by having their president sit down with our president. Doesn't seem like we've gotten a whole lot back so far. What's the takeaway from this initial summit. Well, we've made three significant possessions already to the North Koreans. The first is the meeting itself. Every North Korean leader wanted a meeting with the American president because that, of course places them at the center of the international stage.

The secon and is that we have changed our policy dramatically. Until just recently, the American policy under President Trump and his predecessors was that North Korea had to commit to de nuclearization as a condition to getting into a meeting. Now that is shifted from a condition to getting into the meeting to a goal of the meeting. That's a significant concession. And the third is, of course, and end to the joint US South Korean military exercises, which is

has been a longstanding objective of North Korea. Now, if it turns out that we do get full and verifiable and irreversible denucluisation, it will have been worth the price, but we don't know that yet. And so until now there to go. The concessions have gone one way, and we'll have to see what to negotiations produced. All of us must hope and pray that it will succeed and the policy as we expect it will take place, but that remains to be seen, and it's going to be

a long difficult road. Let's talk a little bit about life after the Senate. You become chairman of the Disney Corporation. Uh, and you're there for four years? How did that? How did that position come about? Just before I left the Senate, I was contacted by Michael Eisner, who was then the CEO and chairman of the Walt Disney Company, asked to meet with him and members of the board, and they offered me the position of president of the company, that is second in line to after CEO. A great man

named Frank Wells had held that position. He had died tragically in a helicopter crash, and they were looking for someone to succeed them. After giving a careful consideration with my wife, five was of course flattered and honored by the offer, I decided not to accept it because my goal was to get back into the practice of law, with which I was more familiar, and I wanted to

continue living in the East. Uh. I told Michael, and about a month later he called me and said, we know you've turned us down on the other position, but we have a vacancy on the board of directors. Would you be interested in join the board? And I was very much interested. I like Michael, I liked the company. It was interesting and exciting for me, and so I served on that board for about twelve years, the last four of which I was the chairman of the board.

So your chairman at the same time that Disney ends up buying Picks are a tremendous acquisition that so far as worked out really well. What was the decision making process, like was that motivated by Eisner? By Steve Jobs? Who? Who moved that forward? And how did the board respond to a lot of people were a little skeptic given what looked like a high price. It's since paid off in spades, but back then people were concerned about it. Uh. The decision was made by Bob Iger shortly after he

took office. Uh in UH discussions with the Steve Jobs and UH. Steve then joined our board and so we overlapped on the board for a relatively short time and then I retired. Uh. It was a good acquisition. Interestingly, that occurred right at the end of my tenure. Right at the very beginning of my tenure, we had made a large acquisition of ABC which included ESPN that also was criticized for overpaying, but it turned out very well. So we had at the beginning and at the end

the acquisitions that paid off very well. In between, we had a third one which wasn't so good, that was purchasing UH what was then the Power Rangers became ABC Family. So UH, overall the record was good, but it wasn't perfect. So after the Pixar purchase, Steve Jobs, I believe becomes the biggest outside shareholder of Disney. Uh. You're on the board with him. What was that like? He's a famously mercurial CEO. What was he like as a Board of

directors member? He was a valuable and contributing member of the board. Uh, very outspoken, very direct in his comments. I found him to be helpful to the board's deliberations and proceedings, although, as I said, we overlapped for a relatively short period of time. So you also served as a director for Federal Express, for Xerox, for Staples, for unital Leaver. How did the background in the Senate, and I guess, especially a majority leader, how did that help

you prepare for those sort of private sector roles? While serving a SENTI majority leader is a very tough job. You don't have any real specific power, only the opportunity to try to persuade people to do things that they should be doing without being asked. But you do acquire some degree of patients, some degree of insight into how

to bring people together. Uh. And so it was very helpful to me, not only in my role as a corporate director as chairman of a board, but also in my work in Northern Ireland, the Middle East and elsewhere. I want to say that for me, service on the boards that you described was really an enjoyable educational experience. I met and worked with some really great leaders. I'd mentioned Michael Eisner, who did a great job for twenty years with Disney. Bob Iger, who succeeded him, has done

a great job during his tenure. One of the great persons I've ever met in any compare the political business was Fred Smith. I knew you're gonna know who was the founder and long term CEO of Federal Express. Fred as a terrific guy, would have succeeded in any walk of life that he chose. There were great leaders in other companies as well that I served on from whom I learned a lot. So During the steroid scandal at baseball, the performance nancing drug scandal, Major League Baseball was flailing

about looking for a way to help resolve it. You got involved. Tell us how you helped them move beyond that era in in sports. That was a very difficult undertaking because I had no power to compel anyone to talk with me or to produce documents. Everything is voluntary and the Major League Baseball Players Association made the decision to oppose the investigation and to refuse to cooperate in any way. Of the twelve hundred major league players, only

one voluntarily agreed to talk to me. In response to my request. I sent a letter to every single one of the twelve players, and only one responded. And who was that. That was Frank Thomas, who was then with the White Sox, a great player who made the Hall of Fame, and I met with him. It was on the condition that he wasn't going to disclose any names, and he didn't, but he confirmed the fact that there

was widespread use of steroids. He resented the fact that he had achieved historic successes, putting him in the Hall of Fame in a clean way, but he had to compete with players who cheated by using drugs. And I made the argument to the players, which they rejected at the time, but later accepted that the principal victims of what was going on, with the majority of players who didn't cheat, they had to compete with players who were cheating,

and their livelihood were endangered. They rejected at the time, but I'm very pleased to tell you that after I issued my report, there began to be a change in attitude and right now, to their great credit, the players strongly support vigorous enforcement, a comprehensive program, and Major League Baseball, to the eternal credit of the then Commissioner Bud Selig, who started this process, and to the players who have now come around to this view, major League Baseball has

the toughest most effective drug testing drug prevention program in professional sports in the United States. Fascinating stuff. I have to just ask you the straight up question, what do you think of the state of politics in America today? It's unfortunate, uh, were dysfunctional as widely used, and I think that it does not reflect well on our country, or on our democracy, on or on our political process. But let's point some fingers, because no one person, no

one party, gets all of the blame. But but how would who would you point fingers at historically that led us to where we are today? Where there are many factors. I'm not an historian or a sociologist. I'm an ex politician. I'll make two comments, uh, two suggestions that I think, if adopted, would help improve the situation. Where in the first is to jerrymandering the manipulation of congressional district lines

each ten years after the census. It's been going on since the country was founded, but technology has advanced so rapidly, and as you know, technologies neutral. It can be used for good purposes, it can be used for bad purposes.

In the case of Gerryman has been used to an extreme way that has resulted in what you might call minority representation UH in state after state, big states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Republican candidates for the House of Representatives in recent the most recent years after the last redistricting, received a minority of the vote and got a huge majority

of the seats. Underway now is an effort in sixteen states, led by California and Iowa, to to deep politicized, to reduce the politicization of the process of rewriting, revising congressional districts to make them more compact, more logical, more competitive. I think that's a huge factor and that will go

a long way toward reducing the dysfunction. That's very pro democracy, and that's less about grabbing power and more about respecting That's exactly right there say some there's some Supreme Court cases spending on this all there are. It's a big issue now for the stream. The second is money. We are drowning in money. I travel all over this country and for ten years I have asked every audience, do you believe that our members of Congress are more responsive

to their constituents than they are to their donors? In ten years before tens of thousands of people, only two or three people have raised their hands. That that's the corruption of American politics. The trust of the public in their elected officials has been severed. And you cannot have an effectively functioned democracy if the people do not trust those who they have elected. And a big reason for

that is money. The Supreme Court, in a series of decisions, the best known one being Citizens United, has opened the floodgates to money pouring into our system at precisely the time that, in a series of unrelated actions, transparency has decreased, almost to the point of vanishing. So you have this double whammy, billions and billions of dollars being poured into the political process, less and less openness for the people

to know who's giving what to whom. So you're not a big believer as some Supreme Court Justices seem to be that money is the same as speech. So they say money is money and speech is speech. And every sixth grade student in America knows they're not identical. And the second point is that we ought to have the right in our country, the people, through their elected representatives, to impose reasonable restraints on contributions to political campaigns and

expenditures by political campaigns. This Supreme Court has effectively prohibited that. And that's what we need is a change that says, yes, American people can they do have the right to control the amounts of money going into campaigns and to control the manner in which that money has spent in political campaigns. Until that happens, I don't think we're going to see any change in the dysfunction. I think, in fact, it will get worse. What what about public financing of of

candidates and elections instead of private donations. I believe in it, but it doesn't have political support in our country. When I was sent a majority leader, we passed in the Congress for the last time a major comprehensive campaign finance law. We couldn't get the votes to include public financing. It did a lot of other good things, but unfortunately President Bush vetoed the bill and we couldn't override the V two. So let's talk about the sixteen presidents election. A number

of people were surprised by the outcome. I recall sitting and my wife was a big Hillary supporter. She's a public school teacher, and I remember very early watching the returns come in. We saw North Carolina was a little it a little uh late, and and some of the other normally Democratic leaning states like Virginia, and I recall saying to her, honey, Uh, this doesn't look like it's going your way. How surprised were you buy the outcome

of that election. I had a feeling it was coming, and in fact I appeared on Bloomberg Television that evening, and just before I went on, the young man who worked for Bloomberg doing the cabulating and the interpreting the votes come up to me and said, Trump is gonna win? Really? And he did, yes, Yes, as a young man, just in the same building, a different floor. So at that

point I realized that it was over. Of course, as we all know, Trump lost the popular popular vote by about three million, but under our system, he won fairly and in a democratic way. Uh, my disagreements with the president focused on policy. Has been a lot of talk about his personal characteristics, and everybody, every citizen, is able

to make up his or her own mind. In that respect, I think the public debate ought to focus on policy, and my disagreements with him are in the area of policy, most recently in the so called tariff wars and the trade wars and tarroifts being imposed on our lies like Canada and the European Union. And so she's got this hugely ironic situation where the president is praising Putin and Kim Jong un and blasting Canada's prime minister and the Europeans,

who are our historical lies. Well, the Canadians are a very vicious warlike people on our northern border. You have to you have to be prepared for Uh. Yeah, I'm I'm every bit of surprised that it's China, Russia, and North Korea are now our friends and Canada, the UK and Europe seems to somehow be our our adversaries. And

to say that's a complete misreading of history. Also in the after let me go back in the seventy five years before nine, Europe was devastated by three major landfomers in the last to the United States interfered decisively in the aftermath of that terrible conflict, in which sixty three million people died in a world in which the population was less than half of what it is now, we the United States, led the creation of a world order

to promote trade, stability, peace, and prosperity, and it included the European Union, NATO institutions to help people, all of them, achieve democracy and freedom and prospery Arnie, and largely it has worked. It's imperfect, as are all human beings and all institutions. What the President is doing is in effect tearing down that system and trying to replace it with a series of ad hoc alliances with Russia, with China, and with North Korea. There's no reason why the two

have to be mutually exclusive. We don't have to attack Canada in order to do a deal with North Korea. We don't have to seek the dissolution of the European Union in order to deal with China or Russia more effectively. In fact, the opposite is true. We should be strengthening our alliance with our friends to help us in dealing with our historic adversaries, and as as I put it, we should be combining with Europe to deal with the

real abuses by China in the system of world trade. Instead, it is we who are isolated and China and others who are allied against us. It's an ironic turn in the wheel of history that I think will ultimately redound not well for the United States. Let's talk about China. It seems that the United States is seating leadership on

a number of areas to China. Technology, helping the Third World come crawl out of their economic disadvantage, trade, immigration, China seems to really have stepped into the void that the US since has has created. Well, the greatest gift that the Chinese government could receive was given by President Trump when he took office and withdrew from the Trans

Pacific Trade Partnership. These were ten Pacific facing nations who wanted to establish their primary economic relationship with the United States. They did not want China to be dominating them in economic or other affairs, and we spurned that effort. We in effect withdrew. So what did they do? Well, They're now turning to an agreement that will include China. We effectively walked out the door and left it open for

the Chinese to dominate, and and that was a profound error. Now, the fact is the Chinese have abused and misused international trade mechanisms. They don't enforce intellectual property rights, they impose restrictions on foreign investment. There is a great deal of theft of international property rights. We should be addressing those directly, with the support of our allies, in a way that deals with the problem. If you've got an intellectual property

rights problem, you address that directly. A broadly tariff based, tariff increased based approach is exactly the wrong approach. So we're using the wrong weapon to fight the Chinese in there in the way they're abusing the system, and we are at the same time severing our ties with our allies who should be supporting us in the effort. The Europeans cannot understand what it is that we're doing because it is ultimately so contrary to our own interests. Astonishing stuff.

We have been speaking with Senate Majority Leader uh and peace negotiator Senator George Mitchell. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and come back to check out the podcast extras. You can find that on iTunes, overcast stature, Bloomberg dot com, wherever final podcasts are sold. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Check out my daily column on Bloomberg dot com. Follow me on Twitter at rit Holts. I'm

Barry Hults. You're listening to Masters and Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast, Sandra Mitchell. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm a fan of yours for a while and I really enjoy the master's um level education in policy and politics. Well. Thanks, I'm glad to be here. It's have been a pleasure to talk with you. So so let's go over some of the questions we didn't get to during the broadcast portion you you had said

something that I took a note on. Being Senate Majority leader is is very challenging and you don't have a lot of explicit authority, but you do have the ability to appoint chair people of different committees and standing um appoint mensay, as well as you get to control what comes to the floor. I would think it's a fairly big amount of fairly substantial amount of power in one person. That the fifty plus senators the that answer to the majority leader are not going to want to make you

upset with them. The majority leader no longer has the direct power to appoint chairman and individual committee members. That's done on both sides, generally by a committee of senators. He does appoint to steering what we call the Steering Committee, so he does have an indirect authority. But also there have been customs built up, including seniority, which is an absolute but as a huge factor. So you're right, he is, I would get I would describe it as first among equals.

Does have some degree, but it is no way near the power to say of the Speaker of the House. The Speaker of the House is mentioned in the constitutional constitutional office. In fact, the Speaker of the House is third in line to the presidency and the event of something happening. Uh, the Senate majority leader is not mentioned anywhere. It's it's a custom that arose when the Senate became dysfunctional,

long after the Senate itself began its existence. So, Uh, you have the power of persuasion, you have to gain the trust and confidence of your colleagues. So Senator Mitch McConnell has been majority leader for the Republicans for quite some time. Now, what do you think of the job he's done, both as a former Senate majority leader and as a Democrat looking at the control the opposing party

has well. I regard Mitch as a friend. I was flattered when he was a like a majority leader, he described me as the role model he had intended to emulate. I think he's been very effective in behalf of his party and the principles of his party. I disagree with some of the things he's done. I strongly disagreed with his decision, which has proven to be effective from their standpoint, to not permit even a hearing or a vote on President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court one year before

Obama left office. That's going to come back someday and haunt them because every weapon used in politics war is rapidly disseminated to the other side. So it's just a matter of time until right after the mid term elections, a party says, well, we're not going to consider any more presidential nominees. If it can be one year, why can't it be two years. I think that's very destructive of the process. Harmful for the country, but I think it sure did advance the interest of the Republican Party.

Do you think they stole a seat? Is that a fair way? Well, I I don't use those words. He pursued a policy, he was firm on it, he executed and implemented on his plan, and it succeeded. From that perspective, I think is down the road when that is applied in the other direction. Uh, there may be a balancing of that view. But I think he's he's effective, he's intelligent. He clearly has the trust and support of the vast majority of his colleagues, particularly uh those his party has caucus,

the Republicans in the Senate. So we mentioned the little social bubbles that have come up in terms of consumption of news courtesy of social media. What do you think the impact of a cable channel like Fox News has been on the population and the politics in the United States. Well, it's had a profound effect, and the principal effect has been to benefit those whose views are espoused on Fox News. Uh. The reality is, of course, that they have been partisan

news outlets throughout our nation's history. One of the roughest elections in American history was an eighteen hundred when the two candidates were men who have become icons in American history. John Adams was the incumbent, Thomas Jefferson was the challenger, and they were what we would think of a Newspapers that were very partisans said awful things about each candidate. But then of course the news were they were rarely read by few people. It was distant in time and place.

It did not have anywhere near the scope and power of electronic media, the communication the radio that we're now speaking over, the power of the television camera, which reaches literally everybody in this country, and as we discussed earlier, particularly in cable news, has the enormous effect of repetition that drives home a point. Uh, if a politician makes a mistake, now it isn't just reported and forgotten, it's repeated thousands of times. So it's deeply embedded in the

minds and attitudes of the American people. And let me just make one of the point. As humans, we have two capacities that that are very very important in this discussion. The first is there is almost no limit to the human capacity to rationalize, to excuse behavior by those who with whom I'm associated that we would never tolerate in

those on the other side. And then secondly, our minds are wired in a way that we receive, well, retain, and use information that is consistent with our own previous views. But we have a hard wall that keeps out information that is inconsistent with our prior beliefs. And so we tend to receive information see gout and receive information that confirms our views, and to repel and reject information to

the country. And you combine that with the immense, immense power of rationalization, and you have people in this country today who not only support not only a silent about but affirmatively speak out in behalf of actions that they would never tolerate when performed by the other side. And that goes both ways, of course. So one pundit has gone so far as to say if there was a Fox News type of an organization when Nixon was president, he never would have had a step down after Watergate?

Is that overstating it? Or how influential is is an entity like Fox News or maybe something like Sinclair broadcasting to the either local or national politics. It's in pospold to of course, either categorical acceptor eject a description like that. But it is indisputable that Fox has enormous power and that it is it has become a part of the Republican Party and a spokesman for the party, not just announcing the views, but actually shaping the views and changing

the views. Just look at the policies or the Republican Party on the issue of trade. For nearly a century, Republicans have strongly advocated trade policies, very very pro open trade. Board back and look at the votes in the House of Representatives by Mike Pants when he was in the House, by most of the top Republicans literally on a dime.

The policy has been completely reversed, and now you have the most anti free trade president in modern era, strongly supported by Fox and by others in the Republican establishment, whether within the party itself or those who support it. Now, that happens on all sides in politics. I mean, I'm a Democrat, but the fact is that a long time ago, Democrats were the party of slavery, and the Civil War divided Democrats on the subject, while Republicans were created on

the abolition side. The two parties have completely shifted roles on the on the dramatic and powerful issue of race. Over the past hundred and fifty years, shifted roles somewhat on trade, and so people change, individuals and political institutions. But the power of electronic media has created a situation in our politics that enables people to more fully exercise the natural rationalization that we all have and to justify policies. As I said, I'm repeating myself now that they would

not otherwise told Jimmy. Just give one example of that right now. When President Obama said that he would be willing to talk to other foreign leaders, there was an avalanche of criticism Cuba. I remember people went crazy over Cuba, and they specifically mentioned North Korea. You go back and look at the old Fox News reports and Republican political leaders. There was an avalanche of criticism that he would think

of talking to these terrible people. Well, now that Trump has done it, it's supportive, and of course it's truth that the Democrats go through role reversals as well. I don't mean to suggest that this is a one way street in American politics, but the combination of the power or of electronic media, the human capacity for rationalization, our closing our minds to different points of view. Personally, I

think it's unhealthy. One of the greatest things that happened to me as Senate majority leader was I had to listen. I had to listen to points of view, many of which I disagreed with, because I had to respect each senator as an individual who had his or her own views, his or her own constituency. And I I've said many times that the most effective way of leading is by listening. You get to know what people want, and then you can act on that basis rather than acting on the

basis of what you think they might want. Quite quite fascinating. So there's two subjects I have to get to um before we get to our standard questions, one of immigration, but the other is much bigger. Let's talk a little bit, or maybe it's not bigger, but let's discuss what's going

on with the Muller investigation. Uh, you you were a majority leader during certain special Council appointment point theees, what do you think about what's taking place with the issue of of Russian interference with the election, the whole Muller investigation, the witch hunt, the president saying you can pardon himself. This has to strike you as somewhat bizarre compared to what what you lived through, and you are sent a majority leader or am I ouvererstanding? It is this just

par for the course? Well, it has been historically the case that presidents who have been subject to independent investigations have opposed those investigations, have sought to undermined them, have sought to discredit them. Uh. And uh so that's what President Trump is doing. That's what President Clinton tried to do. Uh. The fact is that, uh, Robert Mueller is a Republican. He was appointed by Rod Rosenstein, who is a Republican, and who was appointed to his position by President Trump.

So it's a far stretch to suggest that it's a partisan witch hunt when the two principal leaders, those conducting and those supervising the investigation, are themselves lifelong Republicans. Uh. I don't think they will succeed. I think it would be a catastrophic error for the president to fire Muller, although that appears to be at least from time to time under consideration. I also think it will be a catastrophic error for the president to refuse to honor a

subpoena issued by the Muller investigation. If in fact, he does not agree to testify, so I think he's got a tough decision to make sometime in the next few months. Meantime, I think Bob Mueller has demonstrated a degree of restraint. There are no leaks from his investigation, none whatsoever. It's talking about discipline. He's played it straight. He has talented,

able people uh working for him. We don't know what the facts are because he has not disclosed them, and so it's premature for anyone to say, well, this hasn't been proved or that hasn't been proved, because we don't know. He's in the middle of an investigation. When he completes his investigation and makes his views known, then we'll be

able to make a judgment. I do want to say that I believe that both President Obama and President Trump have not responded with sufficient vigor to the efforts by the Russian government to interfere in our democratic process and to destabilize democracy. Is not just here, but in Europe and other places. As there's just a big report out this week that Russian intelligence officers and others seemingly interfered

with the Brexit vote as well. Despite its possession of nuclear weapons, and it's having been a will superpower just a few decades ago, the Russian economy is actually quite small. It's less than half the size of California's economy. It doesn't even begin to approach ours. We should respect them, we should understand that they've been through a very difficult period of what many of them regard its national humiliation

by the loss of superpower status. But at the same time, it's very clear that technology again has enabled them to conduct what is essentially cyber warfare on the United States, on democracy, on the Western European democracies, in a way that requires a vigorous response, and and I don't think our government has made a response with sufficient vigor and

force that we need. I think that was true of Obama, and I think that is obviously true of Trump, who makes excuses for Putin almost every day, repeats his admiration for him. Now he wants to meet with him, wants to talk with him in the light of the overwhelming information that has been publicly disclosed about how Russia sought to interfere in our elections, So that that's a fascinating

way to describe it. The pushback from the Obama supporters would be something like, well, we were in the middle of a presidential campaign and they didn't want to be accused of trying to interfere. Kind of a whimpy response if you asked me, or or at the very least not robust enough to say, Hey, regardless of the outcome of the election, we need to make sure that our process is safe and secure and has the confidence of the American people. What should Obama have done? The first time?

The National Security apparatus says, hey, we see the Russians are trying to cause ruckus here, either hacking actual voting equipment or their interference via social media. What should the Obama administration have done? Well, he did go to Putin and say personally and directly to him, cut it out. But in my judgment, while that was appropriate by itself, it was inadequate, and I believe that we should have

responded in kind to the Russians. We certainly have the capacity to conduct such operations ourselves, and I think that you can't simply turn the other cheek into circumstance, so we simply issue warnings that you have to take action now, the President did say we will take action this President Obama. Some of it will be public, some private. The problem is nothing appeared publicly, and we don't know what happened privately.

And if you don't do something publicly, then there's no way that the American people have to know that something is occurrent. President Trump, by contrast, has simply denied the Russian activity, said he accepted Putin's uh words on this, and continues to praise President puter Now in his latest proposal to bring Russia back in to the G seven and make it the G eight again, which, by the way, the rest of the other G six all were seemed to be a gas that well, with the exception of

the new government in Italy. Yeah, and even walked that back yea, because they're trying to undermine those democracies as well. In fact, the Russians are more concerned with the European democracy than they are with ours, because there were distant from them, and they have always wanted a buffer state on their western border, and they have memories of Napoleon's invasions, they have memories of Hitler's invasion. It's not a figment

of their imagination. It's a reality, and so they want those buffer zones, even though the wars of the century would be very different from those of the twentieth century. None unless it's a human reaction, and so I think what we needed to do is responding kind. This goes back to my argument about China and trade. The President Trump is correct when he says China is abusing the world trading system, of which they are now a party. The problem is the answer that he's chosen tariffs which

are hitting our lies is the wrong response. It's as though after Pearl Harbor that we invaded Brazil. Uh. It's a misdirected response. The way to deal with intellectual property actions abuse in China is to affect intellectual property here and elsewhere. In other words, make a response that's specific to the problem. If they are imposing restraints on let's say investments and by financial institutions, then we impose restraints

on their financial institutions. And as we've seen in the case of the company ZTE, we have the power to affect Chinese economic activity. Z t E was going into bankruptcy when we took the position that they couldn't be involved, American producers could not be involved with them, and incredibly enough, the President is now rescuing trying to rescue that company. Even congressional Republicans are upset about that. Well, he said he was going to save manufact action in jobs, and

he did. We just didn't realize in yes, I mean so, so I don't disagree with this premise that that they're they're doing things they should be doing, and we should be responding to him. The problem is that the response is hurting our lies more than it's hurting them, and divides the West when we should be united to come up with the policy that is targeted, selective and confronts the Chinese in the areas where we believe the abuses

are recurring. It is a confounding strategy, isn't it. We look at it, There's never been anything like this as that, and and it's it's based on the falsehood. I mean, the President cites individual cases of high tariffs in Canada and Europe, but the reality is, according to all that I've read, is at the average level of terroiffs and NITA in the EU are about three and in the

United States they're a little less than that. So there are a relatively modest level of tariffs, although there are individual cases on all sides where they're very high, and there's are slightly higher than ours, and it would be I think a reasonable thing to expect that we could get parity even at that low level. But it certainly doesn't justify the massive response that we're making now, in effect daring them to respond in kind, which they have

to do for their own domestic political reasons. The flip side of that is some of our trade partners that do have tariffs complain about our subsidies, especially in the world of agriculture. Look at sugar, look at milk, look at corn. We have massive subsidies that make it very challenging for anybody else to compete with our products overseas. If we're going to have a whole conversation about tariffs and trade wars, shouldn't all of this be on on

the table, very expensive subsidies to big agricultural producers. That's why we established the World Trade Organization with rules, procedures and dispute resolution mechanisms to deal with all of those issues. And what the President is doing is undermining the trading system that the United States helped and lead the way to create. Let me take you back in history to the very last days of December nine. The tide of

the Second World War had just changed. Decisive Allied victories in Midway, in North Africa and in Stalingrad in November of that year had marked the maximum expand by the Axis powers, and so from then on their powers contracted. A small group of American officials went to London to meet secretly the British counterparts to begin to prepare for the massive reconstruction that they knew would be necessary when

the war ended. Their central goal was to establish a World Trade Organization, because they believed that trade wars had led to real wars. They believed that the protectionist reaction by the United States and other countries to the deep procession of the late nineteen twenties had pushed the world into depression and had created the conditions that led to the rise of fascism in Europe. In particular Mussolini and Hitler, both of whom had made efforts to come to power.

Mussolini had achieved that had not in the early in the very earliest years of nineteen twenty, and so that's what led ultimately to the World Trade Organization. The treaty was signed in seven by fifty seven countries, but because the Senate was controlled by Republicans as they disliked President Truman,

they wouldn't ratify the treaty. Forty five years later and nine presidents having participated in negotiations, in the last legislative act of my tenure Centi Majori leader, the Senate ratified the creation of the World Trade Organization. Now it made sense. It has helped the United States achieve political, economic, military, increasingly cultural dominance in the world. Of course, it's had some cost to it, but American alliances with our allies

have not been harmful to American interests overall. On balance, they have been beneficial to us. That's my biggest disagreement with President Trump. He says we're a piggy bank that every everybody robbed. He said, everybody takes advantage of us. But the fact is it's been mutual. We have derived an enormous benefit from the creation of institutions from the European Union, from NATO, from the World Bank, from the United Nations. Although many in our country revive all these institutions.

If we think the world is unsafe, now, how unsafe would it be if there was no European Union, if there was no NATO, if there was no United Nations, the dominant power of the United States would be called upon to solve every problem alone, and it would be a massive drain on our resources, military, political, economic, and other. And so we have to do the enlightened thing, which is these are all human institutions, and therefore they are imperfect.

They all acquire bureaucracy and bad habits. We should do all we can to streamline, improve them, to deal with the problems that they have as they come up, but not to abolish them, because we and others benefit from their existence. Fascinating, fascinating stuff. Let's talk about another longstanding policy that seems to be up in the air, and

that's the massive set of changes with US immigration. What are we doing and what's the long term lasting effect from these uh, these big changes that are taking place. Everybody in America came from somewhere else. Human beings first appeared on Earth about three thousand years ago, and they spread slowly around the globe. It was not until about sixteen thousand years ago that humans first entered the American continents by crossing the land Bridge over what is now

the Bearing straight into Alaska. Gradually, over the following six and years, they spread slowly across north, Central and Latin America and became what we know as the Native Americans. About five years ago, the Europeans came across the Atlantic from Europe, and for centuries the British, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch competed for control of North America among themselves and with the Native Americans. Ultimately the British prevailed. The

United States was established. Later Canada was established as independent countries, and the same followed over a longer period of time in Central and Latin America. The negative attitudes of demonization, of thinking of people as other was there from the beginning. The Spanish hated the French, the French hated the better British. They all fought the Dutch Wall Street. The name comes from the wall built there by the Dutch settlers who settled New Amsterdam, and they were building it to protect

themselves against the British, not against the Native Americans. And that persisted for a long time in our history. Now, negative attitudes about quote others are a part of human history, and it's existed in our country somewhat offset once our country was created by the need for people to fill this vast continent. But the first negative immigration laws were

not passed until America was a hundred years old. The Chinese Exclusion Act passed in eighty two to keep out Chinese because a lot of them had come to help work on the Transcontinental River. Then they were more passed. Now the truth is the reality. No reasonable American thinks that we can back to the days of open immigration. We can't let come into our country anybody who wants to come. There are too many tens of millions of people around the world who want to come, which is

flattering to us. Think about this for a fact, people who say, well, China's the dominant rise in country. Have you ever heard of anybody risking their life to break into China? Only once two North Korean guys who had escaped from a concentration camp swam the river to China. Meanwhile, tens of millions want to come here, and they want

to come here because they see freedom and opportunity. You've never met or heard of an immigrant who said I came to America because You've got the best cruise missiles. They come here because they think we have freedom and opportunity. So we need a balance. We need a rational system for treating people fairly, living up the ideals of our country, and to keep the benefits coming. Think about these facts. In two thousand sixteen, seven Americans received Nobel Prizes. Six

of them were immigrants. Think about this fact. Three of the most successful companies in the world are Apple, Amazon, and Google. Apple was created by Steve Jobs, whose father was born in Syria. Amazon was created by Jeff Bezos, whose adoptive father was born in Cuba, and one of the co founders of Google was Sergey ben who himself was born in Russia. Ask yourself, would we be a

better country if they had not been admitted? And ask yourself also, what are the chances that if he'd lived his life in Syria, Steve Jobs would have created Apple, or Jeff Bezos in Cuba or Sir Gey Bryn in Russia. Genius knows no language, no religion, no race. It can be found wherever they're human beings. But it tends to flourish where there's freedom and opportunity, and that's the United States. We let everybody in. So we need a rational, fair

system to bring people in. I don't object to the President's stay saying we want to try to get people with skills. Of course we should, but that should not be used an excuse to eliminate immigration altogether, because you never know what's coming in the second generation, as we saw in the case of Steve Jobs and many many others. My mother was an immigrant. She could not read or write. She spent fifty years working in textile mills on the night shift. My father was the offense son of him

because he had no education. He was a janitor at a local school. So I, one generation removed, was lucky to get an education and go on to become the majority leader of the United States Senate. You don't know now who among these people coming in possesses a spark of genius, or whose child will possess a spark of genius. Let me tell you what a story about a guy named Ji Mitchell, not me, the guy I called the real George Mitchell. It began in the hills of rural

Greece over a hundred years ago. There was a goat hurder, a young guy, young man, a goat hurd named savas Paris Givopolis. He wanted something better, so he came to America. He got a job on the railroad. He was a good worker. At the end of the first week when they paid him, the paymaster said to him, you're a good work if we want you to stay. But nobody can speller pronounced your name. You've got to change your name. So Sava said to the paymaster, what's your name. Paymaster

was an Irish guy, said Mike Mitchell. Sava said, Okay, that's gonna be my name now, So Mike Mitchell. After he finished working on the railroad, moved to Galveston, Texas. He opened a shoe shine shop. He shined shoes for a living. He had a son he named but George Mitchell. The sun was smart, ambitious. He went to Texas a

and m He got a degree in engineering. He then became an extremely wealthy person in New Oilyn gas industry, and he invented fracking, horizontal drilling, and those things that have resulted in the United States now being the largest energy producer in the world. The son of a goat hurder from the hills of Greece who changed his name because nobody could pronounce a smell less spellless name that's

the story American. I'll say one thing to you. Long after, long after I've been forgotten, people will remember the man I call the real George Mitchell, because he changed the course of history. You can argue about the benefits of disadvantages. There's got to be their problems arrives with that. But eight American presidents promised to make America energy independent. Not one of them could do it. But the son of an illiterate goat Hurder from the hills of Greece did

what they couldn't do. The real George Mitchell made America energy independent. That that's an amazing story. So let's get to our favorite questions. So tell us about some of your favorite books. What do you enjoy reading fiction, nonfiction? What? What? What is your some of your favorite reading materials. One of the most influential persons in my life was my high school English teacher. I was a junior. It's a

wonderful woman named Elviral Whitten. Posture straight as an arrow, diction perfect, one of the most brilliant kind women I've ever met. One day she called me in after school. She said, what do you read? And I didn't quite compihend the question, I said, what do you mean. You said, well, books, what books do you read? And I really didn't read anything other than what was needed for school. So she opened her desk, pulled out a book and handed it to me and said, I'd like you to read this

and come back and tell me about it. She said, it won't want to fect your grade one way or the other, but I think you should start reading books. The book was a small one. It's called the novella The Moon Is Down By, written by John Steinbecker, story fictional account of the Nazi occupation uh in, Norway during the Second World War. I read it that night. I was fascinated. I took it back the next day because

I loved her. I wanted to impress her, and so I gave a book report oral that's almost longer than the written book. She handed me another book. I read that. That took up my whole junior year, and at the end of the year she said to me, you're on your own. I want you to pick out the next book you're gonna What was the second book? The sacond book was called Parnassis on Wheels. It was a story about a mobile library. Quite an interesting story, actually, uh,

and then everything I was. I felt badly when she said him on my own because I enjoyed my inner action with it. But I went to the library, the school library, the public library, and finally I kept trying to think, what would she think about this? I read three books called the Bounty Trilogy. Oh sure you need The Bounty is the first one, Men against the Sea is the second one. In pitt Gairns Island is the third one. So to me, those are the most memorable

books I've ever And of course I loved them. I couldn't get over, especially Men against the Sea, which is not widely known. It's a tremendous dramatic story human endurance and courage and strength. Uh. And then I started reading. And I've read mostly history since then, and that's pretty much what I read now. And I've had a good pleasure of meeting some terrific writers. Uh. I At a conference that I spoke at, I met Harlan Coben, who was one of the best known crime writers in the world.

What what so you call a title of one of Harlan Cobn's books? Uh? God, she just had one stand up. I think it is a name that I'm not true, but he's just published on about two years ago. You mentioned Against the Sea, and I want to mention one other guy was a guy named uh Chris Uh. Oh God, I'm blanking on it now. Uh. He's a good friend. He's written several books. He wrote in the Garden of the Beasts about the rise the Nazi's Chris Larson. Also,

I'm now reading his book about the sinking of the Lusitania. Uh. He's a He's a terrific, terrific writer and has become a good Chris Larson Eric Eric last I'm sorry, Yes, yes I got the last name. Not that, not that I remember it, but we were dead wake is that? Oh? He did Devil in the White City. My wife loved that. That's right. Yeah, he's a terrific to writer. Both of them great. I've written five books, but I'm an amateur.

I think these guys are really professional. So another great, great friend who I've read all of his books, uh is Colin McCann. He's an Irish American, written great books. Uh, Let the great worlds, Let the world spin. He wrote one called trans Atlantic in which he featured me. So how can I help? But liking him. Oh, he's got a run of a run of books. Let the Great World, Spin Dancer, trans Atlantic, the Book of men Um you

mentioned Against the Sea, and Endurance. Did you ever get around to reading the book Endurance about the Shackleford journey to Antarctica if you like those sort of just astonishing what these people went through and how they managed to survive? Is that by Eric Larson Um Let me see who

wrote that. There's a funny story to the book, because it kind of came and went in the fifties, and then it was reissued decades later and then suddenly became a suddenly became a best seller, like it just happened to be wrong time Um, Endurance, Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lanson. I don't know that. I've also read a great many books about the origins of human beings, the history of civilization, and so forth. I I like reading that kind of stuff. I read a lot of that.

Any any titles you want to suggest, well, some my way out of date. As a young man, I read the entire I think it's about nine volume history Civilization by a man named Will Durant. Ariel Durant actually the best is the short version of all. The short version is called The Lessons of History. Yes, it's only about

a hundred pages long. It's absolutely brilliant written years ago. Uh, there was a great professor first at Princeton, and he was at the University of California, Santa Cruz named Paige Smith. He wrote a two volume history of John Adams. Then he wrote about a A. I think it's about seven volumes of It's a social history of the United States,

it's not a political history. Absolutely brilliantly written, fascinating. The single most interesting book I've ever read is his one of his volumes on the period of reconstruction in the United States following the Civil War, filled with information about I think most Americans aren't aware of of what happened during the period of reconstruction. Quite quite fascinating. And and

our favorite final two questions. If a recent college grad came up to you and said, I'm interested in a career in public policy of government service, what sort of advice would you give them? I would encourage them. It's very tough, but it's by far the most rewarding thing I've ever done. I I believe that human beings are wired to seek what we define as success, wealth, the

acquisition of property and other things, status, recognition. But the more of those things you get, the more you realize that in reality, life is a never ending search for respect, first and most important. Self respect hardest to get, most important than the respect of others, and I think the way you get them is by service to others. And I tell graduates all the time if you are lucky.

If you are lucky, you will first succeed in what I would define as traditional terms, and then you will figure out that there's got to be more to life than this, and you will find in your life some objective that engages all of your physical and spiritual might, that is larger than your self interests, and that helps others. M quite fascinating. And our final question, what do you know about government and politics and public policy making today that you wish you knew when you began thirty or

forty years ago. Every day of my life has been a learning experience. And I think the single greatest change in American attitudes that is required and that our leaders should be encouraging, is to end the notion that education begins when you end a kindergarten and ends when you graduate from high school of college. The explosion of knowledge, the advances of science and technology are overwhelming, and knowledge,

its acquisition and use must be a lifelong experience. You can't think that you've ended your learning period when you got your degree. In fact, you're just beginning. You've got to keep up with it. And and that I think is so necessary in the age of technological change through which we're living. You can see it in ordinary life. I've finished with this humorous story. I have a son who's in college twenty years old, a daughter who's seventeen. I walked into the den about a year ago. My

son has air plugs on the television. The television is on and his computer screen is on, and I said, what are you doing? He said, I'm studying. That's an example of listening to the airpugs, watching the working, watching television. You have to keep learning every people should think, ever, when you wake up every morning, what am I going to learn today? Absolutely fascinating. We have been speaking with

Senator George Mitchell. UH. If you enjoy this conversation, well, then be sure and look up an intro down an inch on Apple iTunes, UH, and you could see any of the other two hundred plus conversations we've had. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I would be remiss if I did not thank the crack staff who helps us put together these conversations each week. Um Medina Pomona is our producer, Slash audio engineer. Taylor Riggs is

our booker. Michael bat Nick is our research director. I'm Barry Reholts. You've been listening to Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio