>>Good morning and welcome to Global Perspectives.

I'm David Dumke.

Today I'm joined by Nick Rahall, who for 38 years represented West Virginia in the US House of Representatives.

Welcome to the show, Congressman.

>>Thank you.

David It's great to be here.

>>So let me ask you, you start you were elected in 1976.

What made you decide to get involved in politics in the first place?

>>Back in my hometown, Beckley, West Virginia.

My family had always been active in local affairs.

My father started the first radio station in my hometown the year I was born.

And growing up there, going to public schools, Woodrow Wilson High School.

I got interested in civic affairs, became president of the Key Club in high school that got me out in front of civic groups and speaking about local issues or what key club projects were.

And it really got my interest into local politics.

At the same time, the late Senator Robert C. Byrd was kind of my mentor and a lifelong, very close family friend.

My father drove him to his parents funeral, etc.

when he had no car.

And Senator Byrd kind of took me under his wings and offered me a patronage job in those days in Washington, D.C., summers away from college.

It further developed my interest in politics, so I knew one day I was going to run for something.

Didn't know what that something was or when it was going to occur.

But in ‘76, my predecessor, Ken Hechler, surprisingly gave up the seat to run against Jay Rockefeller for governor.

Got clobbered, by the way.

But nevertheless, it opened up that seat in southern West Virginia.

I ran for it against some other unknowns at the time, and I was fortunate and won.

Was reelected 19 terms after.

>>So you you are known for a lot of things was on the hill with with a career that lengthy.

You were the top Democrat on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which is a committee that brings a lot of infrastructure projects home, but also kind of goodies too so roads and airports and all sorts of things.

But you were also known because your background, your heritage, you were a Lebanese-American figure.

And how did that play into your you arrive in Washington?

>>Well, let me say first, I was fortunate in my first year in Congress, this was the second post-Watergate class in those days, freshman rarely got the committees that they wanted.

But I went my first term asking for the Public Works and Transportation Committee.

Number one, interior Financial Affairs, which today's Natural Resources Committee, number two.

And I lobbied the leadership quite hard and I was fortunate.

I got both my first and second.

>>Wow.

>>Committee preferences as a freshman.

So I got off to a good start and I had a lot of support from the Democratic leadership in those days.

And the Transportation Committee, by the way, even to this day, is known as a bipartisan committee.

There are no Republican bridges, no Democratic bridges theyre America's bridges.

And we always got along on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

My other committee, Interior Financial Affairs, was a little more partizan or more controversial between environmentalists and industry, etc.

early on, under Tip O'Neills speakership in the early eighties.

I had been to Lebanon a couple of times before, but in 82 was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to rid the country of the PLO, who had built a state within a state and was using it to attack cross border into Israel.

So Tip O'Neill said, Nick, I want you to take your Kotel.

I'll give you an Air Force plane, go over and go to these countries in the Middle East and see what's happening, come back and report.

And I did that because of my background.

I had an entree into the kings and queens and president of Lebanon, all of the top leaders in those countries.

So that kind of got my interest in international affairs.

And because of my background, as I said, being Lebanese, both my grandfathers were born there.

A lot of people on the floor of the House would come to me on questions that involved the Middle East, even though I was not on the Foreign Relations Committee because I already had my two committees and that kind of developed my interest in that area and others came, as I said, to ask my advice.

And I've always said this is a late poet, Kahlil Gibran, who wrote “He who denies his heritage, has no heritage.

” Danny Thomas, the founder of ALSAC St Jude Children's Research Hospital, quoted Kahlil Gibran a lot and I do as well.

He who denies his heritage, has no heritage.

So I'm proud of my heritage as every individual in this great country of ours should be proud, should be proud of his or her heritage.

>>That obviously a very true statement.

But you also you often worked on issues where you were the distinct minority.

So there were several other members of Congress who also had heritage, Arabic heritage.

And you had some other members who represented, including my former boss, as you well know.

And we can pretend we didn't know each other, but we did.

Who represented such a large number of Arab-American >>In Michigan.

>>In Michigan.

But was it was it difficult to take the side when you were getting outvoted regular basis on issues that were close to your heritage?

>>Yes and no.

I felt my position was right, even though a lot of my colleagues would come up and privately warn Nick, you don't want to do this.

It's going to hurt your future career.

That made it rough.

But you know, David, what counts is what your constituents feel.

And I did not hide any my positions on the Middle East when I voted against some of these lopsided resolutions in the House of Representatives.

Maybe I was only seven or eight among seven or eight who voted no.

But they were lopsided and they single handedly they pointed the finger solely at the Palestinians for every fracas occurred over there when it was not always a Palestine fault.

So I would explain this back home to my constituents.

And when I'd vote against foreign aid, they would understand that.

And I even spoke before synagogues and rabbis who really understood that I was not preaching against Israel.

I always said we should the United States and Israel should have that solid relationship and friendly relationship.

But I was saying, you know, we have to examine where our money is going sometimes and whether it's going in America's best interests in that region.

And, you know, I did that early in my career, and fortunately for 19 terms, it never worked against me.

My constituents never held that against me.

They were they held the same position.

So I thank my constituents.

They understood and they agreed with my position.

And, you know, Tip O'Neill used to say all politics is local and at the same time, I never forgot my constituent service and my help to the coal miners on black lung benefits or our veterans on veteran benefits or our seniors on social Security, or the local potholes that needed fixed infrastructure type of projects that I brought home the bacon through my transportation committee.

>>You know, you make a good point.

I wanted to just just ask for your take on you know, there's there's there's a common thought of, like the importance of foreign relations.

Obviously, it is important to the nation's security, but in among Congress, members of Congress, foreign affairs, in terms of their constituents being the people they serve, how high does it really rank?

>>Not very high, except in a few areas of the country where the constituencies are predominantly Jewish, perhaps, or in Dearborn, Michigan, in your home state, where they're predominantly Lebanese Americans, they will look for somebody that is representative of their ethnicity.

But as far as across the board, across the country, foreign affairs is not number one on American people's agenda.

It's the economy.

It's the same issues as the first year I was in office, and that's jobs.

And thats can I provide a better life for my children and grandchildren than what I was able to experience.

That's number one, election after election, I have found.

And that old saying of Tip O'Neills all politics is local.

That's perhaps not as true today as it was early on in my career, because you have all of these national issues, outside groups, I should say, that make elections more than just local politics.

It's it's more than that these days, as we've seen in this last election.

>>Yeah, I will.

I will ask you about that in a minute.

I want to I want to kind of continue on the foreign policy for one second.

And that's you had to vote on two wars with with Iraq.

So so explain the pressure then, because when it is a matter of war and peace that does resonate with constituents.

>>That is tue.

And I will say on both of those wars, we had very healthy debate on the floor of the House of Representatives, and this was debate coming from the heart of the individual members of Congress.

Yeah, they may have had staff write them speeches, as, you know, prepared speeches and all of that.

But oftentimes, as in my case, I just threw out that staff prepared speech and spoke from my heart about the issue.

The first Gulf War, for example, I supported President George Bush.

I thought he did it the right way.

He built a coalition of the willing.

It was paid for.

It didn't cost American lives.

He he had support of our friendly Arab countries in the region.

And he did it the right way.

And he was successful.

And the second Gulf War, I was not as enthused initially and got even less enthused as I studied it harder and even visited Iraq shortly before that war started and then saw that, you know, we're not being told this straight as the father, George Bush, would tell us.

And it wasn't and I'm not sure it blamed it on George Bush's son as much as those around him that did not get their way under the father, George Bush.

And so they wanted Saddam out, regardless of the cost.

And I think they're I'm not defending Saddam, certainly.

But there were other ways I felt at the time that we should have explored about as far as getting rid of him.

>>So you went before that, that shooting started and you visited Iraq and saw their foreign minister.

What was your impression of that, that that whole spirit?

>>Let me say first, I was a little suspicious upon first arriving in Baghdad when some of my supposed handlers came and immediately wanted to take me to a nuclear site to show me they didn't have nuclear weapons.

And I said, Wait a minute, I'm not an expert.

I wouldn't know the beginnings of a nuclear bomb right here.

If it was, I would look in there if I was looking at it, what it was.

So I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to be used to verify that you have no nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction.

So they failed on that.

I did not get in to see Saddam Hussein, which was probably good.

But I did see Tariq Aziz, as you said, who was, I think, the second or third in command.

And, you know, I asked him, why don't you allow the U.N. weapons inspectors to come in as President Bush is asking and certify whether you have weapons of mass destruction or not?

He said we don't, but why should we allow them in when we know what the outcome is going to be anyway?

That is, that George Bush is going to bomb us back to the Stone Age.

It doesn't matter what we do.

It doesn't matter what we say, doesn't matter how far we bend over, our day is coming and we recognize that.

So, you know, he was determined and most Iraqis felt George Bush was going to bomb no matter what.

>>So you voted against that?

>>I voted against that war.

>>Did you get any any blowback from your constituents?

>>There was some.

But again, I really felt I did the right vote there.

And I might add that following my visit over there, Senator Byrd, who was the majority leader?

No, he wasn't majority leader then.

He was chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

But anyway, he called me over to his office.

He had not made his mind up on the war.

And we had a very lengthy discussion about my trip.

We had already voted on in the House.

Two of our four member delegation, I believe at the time had voted no and he interrogated me pretty seriously.

And it was a week or two after that that he came out against the war.

>>Very famous speech, as it turns out.

>>Yes.

Yes, it was.

Yes, it was.

>>And so you were responsible for that?

>>I'm not no.

>>I'm just I'm not.

Just teasing.

But he was he was seriously looking for >>Yes.

And he studied very every issue and every little detail.

>>So we were you were talking before we went off on the path of Iraq about how issues have become nationalized and, you know, has that mean there's is there less compromise than when you started in 1976?

>>There is much less compromise.

You know, David, partizanship division has always been a part of our country.

Back to our founding days.

Our Constitution was built on compromise.

And it's always been a part of our democracy.

Small D but only in, I'd say in 94 when the Republicans took control of the House for the first time in 40 years and Democrats got sloppy.

There's no question about it.

We made our mistakes and probably deserved to lose control of the House.

But since that time in 94, when Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay and Dick Army and company took over, the partnership really increased.

And, you know, the famous line of Tom DeLay's when he told the lobbyists on K Street, if you allow any Democrat into your office or you go visit a Democrat, you don't come see me ever again.

That didn't help.

How do you build partizanship when you have statements like that?

And so it just continued to get bad and get worse.

>>Did you see more gerrymandering as time went on?

>>Yes.

Yes.

Not not in my home state of West Virginia, but yes, across the country.

That was definitely an issue.

And also money.

Money and money helps this divide that we have in this country.

You have the far right who went for Newt Gingrich and company and helped keep him in power and and started funding the right extreme.

So what did the Democrats do?

Oh, we ought to do the same thing.

They went to their far left, billionaires got them to do the same.

And so you have the far right and the far left, both with big money behind, both with one or two the cable news networks behind them, that all they have to do is talk 24/7.

They have to divide the American people.

They get their ratings up, which means more profits for their stockholders.

So it's money.

It's money.

It's money.

And the Citizens United decision in 2010 helped drive the chase for money when it basically said corporations are individuals and the free speech clause and allowed to open the doors for corporations to give undisclosed unchecked unlimited amounts of money to all these special committees.

They set up.

It's horrendous.

And we saw what records amount of spending in this last midterm of any election we've had in history.

If I'm not correct now.

>>Every every cycle it.

>>Gets really tiring.

>>So let me ask your first election campaign in 1976.

I'm not asking if you remember exact money, but how much money and how much time did you spend raising money?

Suppose your last election.

How much time do you spend?

>>Zero time raising money.

Because I went in and borrowed from the bank on my own.

>>Okay.

>>And I think my total spending was around $250- $300,000.

So compare that to today.

It's just it's just gotten out of hand.

And, you know, I was not good at raising money during my time in office.

I didn't feel like asking my constituents for money, although they supported me.

And I appreciated that, but not to the amounts that some of my colleagues from the West Coast or the East Coast could go and raise in one night in their home district.

What I couldn't raise in ten years.

>>I mean, if you raised that much money in your district where does the money are go then at the end, you know, you wonder, yes, you saw that the Georgia race and this year in the Senate is know it's the money is is out of unbelievable.

>>It's out of hand.

But you know Congress can pass as we have campaign finance reform laws trying to limit the amounts of money and all that.

But the Supreme Court will knock it down.

The Supreme Court has a say on all of these issues, and they will, under the free speech clause, allow this unlimited spending, as they did in that Citizens United decision back in 2010.

In addition to that, there's lawyers galore.

They will find loopholes in any campaign finance law we passed and you cannot-- >>Does it take a constitutional amendment that-- >>Yes, it would.

Yeah.

And that's not going to happen >>Because >>There's too much that would fight that.

>>Exactly.

And you need 60 votes in the Senate, right.

And that's that's not going to happen in any time in the short while.

>>What are some of the solutions?

I know you you participate in the former members of Congress association, the Congress to campus activities.

And that's a bipartisan program.

We've had several of your colleagues on before.

What do you tell young people who may be disillusioned with the process and where can you look for ways to reform the system in a way that would a realistic first of all, and and secondly, can get to a point where we could pass positive legislation?

>>Yeah, it's a very good question.

And it comes up in all of our former members of Congress session with young people.

They do feel disillusioned, although they're surprised to see us come to their campus and have a Democrat and a Republican that don't do not agree on all the issues.

But by golly, we respect one another and we have lunch together and dinner together.

And they're very surprised to see that.

And I always tell them, you know, there is still some form of bipartisanship that exists in the Congress.

It's needed to keep our government open.

It's needed to keep the Social Security checks coming.

Our veterans benefits come in, our black lung checks for our coal miners.

There is a bipartisanship that does still go on in the Congress.

And I believe in this current Congress that's about to conclude by the year end.

There's been over a couple hundred bipartisan bills.

They don't get the headlines.

>>Right.

Right.

>>But they still have a very important one to do by the end of the year and fund the government.

That has to be done by by the end of this year.

So I tell them then I tell them to look at our transportation committee, how we work over the years in a bipartisan fashion, got infrastructure done for our country, and every now and then it will break out in a big bill that gets attention, like the infrastructure law or the IRA legislation.

And it takes a while for this type of infrastructure building to get to the average American where there's increased access to broadband, road and road projects, water and sewer projects in parts of our country that have never had clean water and sewage.

Airport development projects of that nature that are crucial.

>>Do you think the average voter kind of takes for granted that those are going to going to happen?

>>More.

They are more and more, yeah.

>>Because it doesn't get the coverage.

It's just as there.

>>More so today and there's even a tendency to still vote against those that are responsible for bringing such improvement.

>>Right.

>>To their everyday lives.

>>It's a hard way to say thanks.

>>Yes.

>>Well, you know, the other thing that seems to have happened is, you know, the issues, all Democrats are for these issues and all Republicans are for these issues.

But you were there representing West Virginia when the climate and environmental issues started to come to prominence.

And you're West, you're representing coal country.

How did you balance that and can someone still balance that now?

>>Yes, it can be done and I like to pride myself.

In some of my years in Congress, I had the endorsement of both the National Coal Association, West Virginia Coal Association and the Sierra Club in the same election.

I had both of their endorsements because I had tried to bring them together back to day one.

My first year in Congress when I was on the conference committee as a freshman rare in those days, and wrote the final SMACRA bill, Service Mine And Control Reclamation Act.

I was behind Jimmy Carter when he signed it into law in 1977 in the Rose Garden, And one hand on the one side of me was environmental community and the other side was a coal community.

They came together and we struck a compromise in that legislation so it can be done.

And today, one of the bipartisan bills for example, this passed recently is involves guns and crime, gun control.

But yet it didn't get much attention because it wasn't as broad or sweeping bill as progressives or some of the others would like.

But it was something and, you know, you don't get everything you want in one fell swoop.

You have to nibble at it a little at a time.

And that's what it takes to get things done in a bipartisan fashion.

And, you know, today it's it's hard to do that, but it can be done.

And you mentioned issues that Democrats were divided on.

I was a pro-life Democrat, for example.

>>Maybe one or two left, right.

>>If that.

I don't yeah, I was a pro-gun Democrat.

I always had the NRA endorsement.

So I was conservative on the social issues, as were my constituents.

I had union support.

That was probably one of the biggest issues against me in my final elections.

But I was proud to be a supporter of our union, our hard working men and women who happen to be the backbone of this country.

But but some of the far right money that I referenced earlier was vehemently against unions.

They were at the bust of unions, therefore they were against me.

>>Right.

So you see witness Do you know him quite well?

Senator Manchin, who was the governor of West Virginia before.

So you've worked with him for years?

He was he's been demonized by Democrats.

He's been demonized by Republicans.

Do you think that's a sign that he's doing a good job or do you think it's and how hard is that for someone to be in that position now?

>>It's very difficult on him.

I know him.

I've known him my whole political life and vice versa.

And we had dinner just a couple of weeks ago together.

And, you know, it's been very difficult on him.

But because of what you referenced, his taking so much heat from the left and the right, I happen to believe that means he's in the right spot in the middle where the American people, I believe, really are.

If you take away all the issues we've been discussing thus far and and look at what the American people want, they want to get things done for this country.

And Joe Manchin is trying to do that.

You know, President Biden, President Obama before him reached out more to the Republicans than they did to me, to Democrats.

And certainly President Obama reached out in the early part of his administration.

He had more Republicans, including from my home state, than the White House than which I didn't mind.

Fine.

>>If it get somewhere, right?

>>What's that?

>>If it gets somewhere?

>>Yes, Yes.

But then it ended up not getting anywhere.

Not a single vote for health care for example, from the Republicans and other issues.

And then Mitch McConnell says whatever Barack Obama's for, we're against.

>>Right its a hard place to start.

Yeah.

So one more quick question.

We just just have very little time left.

Are you more are you optimistic the system will heal itself?

>>Yes, most definitely.

And as I always said to school classes when I speak to them, you know, we're not the perfect democracy in the world, but we're the best.

And sometimes democracy can be messy.

There's you know, the old saying is two things you never want to see being made.

One is sausage.

And the others laws.

It takes some give and take.

And it's a great process.

And a lot of the American people don't understand the complications that are involved.

And it's just one thing Senator Manchin faces the difficult negotiations, the compromises, the complications that are involved.

And, you know, every piece of legislation anymore.

I don't care what it is.

Even if its “I love mother ” is going to find some opposition from somebody for some reason.

And it's a complicated message you have to work through to get something done these days.

But it can be done and it will be done.

That's why we're the greatest country on the earth and why we have survived for 200 plus years, as we have.

>>Well Nick Rahall.

It's great to have you on.

>>Thank you, David.

I enjoyed it.

Great to be with you.

>>And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again next week on another episode of Global Perspectives.