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Hello and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to creating conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It is Wednesday, August 20th, and I'm Mark Ross, retired managing partner of C and president of the City Club Board of Directors.

We are truly excited to be here today for a number of reasons.

First, we've been working to secure the senator as a speaker here since his election last November.

So I am thrilled we have found a date that worked in his schedule.

Second, we are in a moment where across the nation, this kind of direct engagement between elected officials and constituents has become increasingly rare.

And frequently, when they do happen, they unfortunately can get out of hand.

But here at the City Club, we listen closely and ask tough, respectful questions.

Even with speakers, we may disagree with.

Third.

I am thrilled that despite this short scheduling window for this forum, one week this turnout is approaching and I think it is a complete sellout, which I expect represents a combination of supporters and friends of the Senator.

As well as potentially a few respectful detractors.

Finally, I am honored to introduce Senator Moreno, who I have known and respected personally and professionally for about seven years.

And today is the first time I've seen the senator in person since his election.

So I would like to offer heartfelt congratulations on becoming Ohio's senior senator.

And a huge welcome to the City Club of Cleveland.

As you likely know, Senator Moreno was born in Colombia and immigrated to the U.S. as a young child, officially becoming a U.S. citizen at the age of 18.

Since then, he has built a successful career in business, engage significantly in philanthropy, and has now turned his focus to public service.

He recently traveled to Latin America, visiting Mexico, Panama, and his birthplace of Colombia.

Today we will hear more about that trip.

His work in the Senate and his views on the Trump administration's priorities.

The conversation today will be moderated by Henry Gomez, senior national political reporter of NBC news.

If you'd like to text a question for our speaker, please text to (330) 541-5794, and the City Club staff will try to work it into the Q&A portion of the program.

Now, members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Henry Gomez and Cleveland's own Senator, Bernie Moreno, to.

Senator, thanks for thanks for being here.

Thanks for joining us today.

Well, thank you for doing that.

And also, by the way, to the entire staff here for the people serving us, be organizers.

I think they deserve a huge round of applause as well.

So thank you.

Now, there obviously has been a lot of interest in this event.

I just wanted to start off the top that I have read your emails, your text messages and everything that you've sent me in the week that this has been announced.

I just want to say there's been, no topic is off limits today.

With the senator, we're gonna try to squeeze in as many, tough but fair and thought provoking questions as we can, and you'll have the opportunity to do so as well.

In the second half of the program.

So realizing limited time and heavy interest.

Let's get to it.

As was mentioned, you've just, recently returned from a trip to Latin America in your native Columbia.

It was a bipartisan trip.

You went with, Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona.

Judging by some of the signs from outside, I think some people would have preferred that you stayed there.

But, Wait.

No, no, they're protesting you is what I was told.

Oh, man.

Gomez and Moreno may sound similar, but definitely, Anyhow, why did you make this trip?

And what did you learn while you were there?

What did you bring back?

Yeah, it was an amazing opportunity to really engage in Latin America.

Part of what's happened in my mind is the U.S. has just failed to engage in Latin America over the last 40 or 50 years.

We've kind of shifted our eyes towards Europe and towards Asia, but we really don't pay too much attention to Latin America.

And that lack of engagement opened a door for China to come in in a big way.

And so it was my opportunity to start a process in which we reengage deeply in Latin America.

And and engagement means building relationships with people so they know who you are.

You know who they are.

That starts with also creating trust.

Mexico was, very interesting.

I had not met President Shane Bond before, and her staff and her team, as you may know, our largest embassy in the world is in Mexico City.

3300 people.

So it's a it's a big operation there.

What I found, which is great news, is that Mexico is really stepped up to the plate in a big way.

They are helping us in every facet that we'd want them to help us.

The borders.

Now, we could almost say virtually completely secure.

Border encounters are down 95%.

And paroles, meaning people illegally entering the country for the last 90 days is exactly zero, which is a number that would have been impossible, to achieve, for not the efforts of a partner in Mexico making that happen.

The other component, of course, is drug trafficking.

Huge challenge.

Mexico.

Again, it doesn't get a lot of headlines.

They released almost 50, narco terrorists to America to stand trial here in the US.

That's a big accomplishment as well.

They are also doing a very good job of helping repatriate their citizens to Mexico, offering a suite of services and a lot of cooperation.

Obviously, there's more that must and can be done, but Mexico is a very good trip.

That, of course, shifted our attention over to Colombia.

It was a very sad visit, honestly.

We had originally intended to go to Panama, but we ended up having to go to Bogota a day early because the leading presidential contender, 39 year old great visionary, great future for Colombia, was assassinated on the streets of Colombia.

He was shot in the back of the head and we went to attend his funeral.

The worst part of that story is his dad, attended his wife's funeral.

Who was also murdered when Miguel Oliva was four years old.

And so to watch, the dad would buried his wife.

Now bury his son.

And his grandson is four years old.

And that cycle of violence just has to end in Colombia.

And so the, the, it was a very day the country was in mourning, but we met with everybody, that you could meet with, from presidential candidates.

By the way, we think our elections are messy.

They have 56 people running for president Colombia.

They have, I think, 98 parties, I don't know, a lost track.

But they have to get, consolidated and get together.

We also met with the president of Colombia, who was obviously not even remotely aligned with me in terms of politics, but we did put some things together that we could work on, and I think that's what a trip should be.

We're not going to talk about the things we don't agree on.

What are some tangible things we can do?

So it's a overall very good trip.

We also met with the ex-president who was indicted, I think unfairly, unjustly.

And it turns out yesterday he was released.

So that was a good a good part of strengthening other democratic institutions, but lots of opportunities with Colombia, lots of opportunities in Latin America.

Switching gears to to domestic issues.

It's estimated that the one big beautiful Bill act, which President Trump championed and which you voted for, we'll cut nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid spending.

And there are concerns across Ohio, about how aspects of this, including the work requirements, for adults 65 and how those will be implemented, how they will affect lower income Ohioans.

I believe it was the Senate Center for Community Solutions estimates that, somewhere around 450,000 Ohioans could lose their benefits under this.

Or they actually estimated that when the state was working with its own work requirements, which were 55 and under.

There's also the the cuts to snap.

I'm curious how concerned you are about the bureaucracy and other elements of implementing this.

Will prevent people from receiving the health care and the benefits that they need.

Well, let's start with maybe a baseline, reference.

There's no appetite in Washington, D.C., by the way, to either party, not to help people who have needs.

So I think there's there's a lot of, commentary on both sides of that.

But but that's that's the facts.

So I can tell you that we meet three times a week, the Republican conference.

And people who need benefits need to get benefits.

That's number one.

Let me just say that off the bat.

So the question is like, what really happened?

Part of the challenge is that there's a lot of reporting during the process of what actually happened.

And there's a bill that actually gets printed and signed into law.

Here's what is just facts.

You could disagree.

I agree agree, whatever it is.

But the facts are over the next ten years, we will spend 20% more on Medicaid nationally than we are spending now.

So Medicaid spending will be increased by 20%.

That's fact.

The work requirement kicks in in a year and a half.

The last time we had our work requirement for welfare programs was in the 90s under Bill Clinton, and it was six hours a day of either work or school.

And our bill, we put in four hours a day and we added volunteering as a criteria.

That's something that wasn't in the 90s in Ohio, which is what I care about.

Thanks primarily to the work of Senator Husted, who I give 100% of the credit to.

They allowed Ohio to raise their state provider tax from 3.4% to 5.3%.

We're the only state that got that increase.

All other states were frozen as a result of that.

Ohio have historic levels of Medicaid funding.

So that's just the facts.

That's what it actually is.

In terms of additional help that we put in place, we put in a once in a lifetime, rural hospital transformation fund.

It's $50 billion.

It's not enough.

Rural hospitals are much more difficult to operate, much more difficult to get to the point where they're above water.

That fund could have been twice as much.

There was an amendment that Susan Collins from Maine proposed that would have let the top tax bracket expire for those individuals making $25 million a year, or couples making $50 million a year with the tax, would have gone back up to the pre 2017 levels from 37 to 39.6.

I voted for that amendment.

Senator Husted voted for that amendment.

Unfortunate.

Virtually all Democrats voted against that amendment.

The amendment failed.

So those are just facts.

That's just what it is.

Again, you can disagree with one aspect of that or another.

But the good news is to recap historic levels of Medicaid funding for for Ohio, a work requirement that's a lot less.

It was was before it kicks in in a year and a half.

Does it start right now to allow us to put the technology in place, to make certain that the people who need it don't have to go through a lot of friction to make sure it's done?

It automatically disqualifies any children.

Anybody with disabilities?

Anybody recovering from an illness?

Pregnant women.

So it's very, very targeted and very focused.

And it's two times a year that you have to validate your criteria, and it's harmonized with other benefits.

So that's just the facts.

That's what we did.

I'm proud of the work we did there.

We have to produce much better results.

With health care.

And we're going to, move in the shift to see how we can help improve our health care system.

But this wasn't what the bill was doing.

When you served on the board of trustees for for Metro Health, I'm curious what in your experience, in that arena convinced you that making these cuts to to programs like Medicaid at a time like this aren't going to leave people who rely on that safety net, in jeopardy and in, in, in, you know, real, dire straits.

Well, again, we did in Ohio, we'll see historic levels of Medicaid funding, such as again.

So it's not a cut when you're giving record amounts of Medicaid spending.

You can't use the word cut.

Those are two incompatible, concepts.

And what I learned at Metro, and before that, the Cleveland Clinic is we got to help the people who need that help.

And it's got to be efficiency is what we got to work on.

There's a lot of great ideas that are being proposed as to how we can make the process better, deliver better services for less money.

But I reject the idea that there's cuts because, again, we're not cutting.

We're actually adding, significant amounts of money to Medicaid.

Again, these are things that you can look up.

You can you can argue the premise, but these are things that you can look up.

We will have record levels of Medicaid funding.

That's a fact.

You can.

We'll definitely have time for for questions on the second half of the program.

But we want to be respectful of everybody's time is here.

So I would appreciate, letting the senator answer without interruption.

Well, I think I think you could.

What you can do is, look, I'm always comfortable.

Vantage point.

Don't take my word for it.

Talk to the CEOs of the hospitals.

Talk to the CEOs of the rural hospitals.

They'll tell you exactly what I just said.

Again, those are just facts.

You know, one of the things that happens, one of the things that happens in political dialog, is we don't always agree with baseline information.

But look, I read all 984 pages of the bill.

I was in the chamber for 27 hours as we crafted the voting through this bill.

And it is a fact that the Ohio State provider tax went from 3.4%.

Look it up right now on Google.

It is now 5.3%.

That is a 60% increase in the state provider tax.

Just facts.

The rural hospital fund did not exist prior to this bill.

That's a fact.

The Democrats controlled Congress.

They had that the Senate, the white House and the House of Representatives.

They did not create a rural hospital fund.

We did.

I have said it's not enough money.

We had a plan to increase the rural hospital fund.

I think that people who make $25 million a year in income per individual, 50 million per couple, couldn't go with a 2.6% increase in their income tax.

But every single Democrat, save three, voted against that amendment.

Those are just facts.

Now we're going to get back at it and make that happen again.

You can look that up, look up.

Google Susan Collins amendment and you'll see what it's there.

You see who voted for it.

Three Democrats voted yes.

Every single 44 Democrats voted no.

Those are just facts.

You may not like it because it ruins the narrative of what's being said, but those are just facts.

Talk to the hospital CEOs that are dealing with this.

They'll tell you exactly what I just said.

This is the truth.

I want to I want to ask one more question on, on on the one big beautiful Bill act before moving on.

And I think the response that you're getting so far kind of fits into this.

I mean, what you're saying, what you say are facts, and I'm encouraging people to look it up.

But the polls are showing that this is an unpopular piece of legislation.

Most voters in the country oppose it rather than support it.

And the Democrats are going to be using that in the midterm elections next year.

They're pointing out not just the the discussion we've been having on on Medicaid funding and Snap, but the fact that this is going to, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which is nonpartisan, will increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion over the next decade.

And again, the polls show this is an unpopular bill.

So how do you and Republicans like you, how do you convince people out there that you're right and they're wrong?

Well, is that about being right or wrong?

It's we can't have a civil conversation or an intelligent conversation.

Honestly, if we have two totally different sets of information, which is not possible if I think we're in LA and it's Monday, it's very hard to convince anybody that it's Wednesday.

We're in Cleveland.

I'm just giving you the information.

It's widely available.

People will read news reports.

They get information from TikTok or Instagram.

They're gaslit by, some some political operatives that want to do one thing or another.

I'm just telling you on the Medicaid piece what's factual.

I can tell you that when you pull people about the individual elements of the bill, it's extremely popular.

I'll give you a, for instance.

Again, whether you personally don't like it is a different conversation, but work requirements for able bodied adults is a 7525 issue.

75% of Americans support it.

The other thing that we did in this bill is we have an historic final, finally, long overdue funding of our air traffic control system that's in the bill that's very, very popular.

Anybody who's flown will tell you it's a problem and it needs to happen.

We have no tax on tips.

And the way that works, it's an additional $25,000 tax deduction.

Now that only lives for four years because that's the most we could get done.

We want to get back at it and make that permanent.

We have no tax on overtime.

That's an additional deduction.

We save the standard deduction.

Had we not passed this bill, that standard deduction would have been cut in half the child tax credit.

We increased the $2,200 and made that permanent.

That would have gone down to $1,000.

That's just those are all just facts.

So you can look at it go, oh, those elements.

Do you like those we we have in place accounts for newborn babies for the next four years.

I want to make that permanent, where we put $1,000 into a indexed growth fund, that you can then have other people like employers, which I talked to the GCP today, said, let's get the employers in Cleveland to invest in that, that you could have when that baby turns 28 years old, have half $1 million available, which would be transformative.

So those are all elements of the bill that are in there.

We funded our military, funded our border.

These are all parts of the bill that are in there.

Those is yes.

Again, just facts.

Anyway.

So I think we have to just outline it like this is what I, we spent the month of August doing.

It's hard when you're not in recess to plan things, because we may have votes that come up at the last minute on Saturday or Sunday.

So this August is the ability for us to go out there and really communicate it properly.

Shifting to tariffs, I mean, this is something that the President Trump has been adamant about negotiating and imposing.

You've been supportive of his, efforts in this area, but there's been uncertainty around his approach.

There's their concerns about consumers paying more because companies are passing increased costs down to them.

What's the right balance that makes people's lives more affordable in the present?

And is this a I mean, because this isn't just about whether a family can, you know, by $30 for their kids.

It's about, you know, whether a family can afford to treat their kid to a doll once in a while.

And so I'm curious what the right balance is in your mind here.

Yeah.

So first we got to agree on what the goal is.

And the goal is to have real wages that grow.

So it's the goal is to have your wages higher than inflation.

That's that's the entirety of the program.

Right.

So if inflation runs in the twos you want to have wage growth.

We're way above that right now.

We're accomplishing that.

Wage growth is higher.

Again you can cough and you can be mad and you can act childish.

But at the end of the day, that's just a fact.

That's just a fact.

Well, again, don't take my word for it.

Look it up, look it up.

Yeah.

And not on TikTok.

It's it's real.

Wait.

Real wages are growing.

That is a absolutely true statement.

Inflation's lower today than it was four years ago.

That's just a fact.

And in terms of tariffs with terrorists are doing Henry is doing what we needed to do a long time ago, which is to make sure that we incentivize businesses to grow here in the United States, to have those good, high paying jobs.

Because I'll give you the counter argument.

Let's talk about the counter argument, the tariffs.

Let's let's have no tariffs for a second.

And let's have every job shipped overseas.

Let's have every company chase chase the lowest country on earth to make products.

Let's have companies go out and find slave wages somewhere else.

That seemed like a good idea.

You got to put the American worker on a level playing field.

And thank God we have a president that actually cares about that.

So you talk about auto workers.

That is, that have seen 80% of cars sold in America were made in America.

That number is now 51%.

You think that's good for this country?

And if you do, you're not talking to auto workers.

If you think that our steel industry should be destroyed by the Chinese, then that's not good for our country.

So yes, I'm going to absolutely defend the idea that we need to make more things here in America so that we have good, high paying, middle class jobs.

That's just a fact.

It's sad, honestly, that we had Republicans 20 or 30 or 40 years ago that didn't believe in this, and Democrats did.

And now it's completely shifted.

And you have Democrats running on saying terrorists are bad.

Tell that to the steelworkers in Cleveland.

Tell you, the autoworkers in Toledo, these things work.

You and I talked earlier this year about Chillicothe and the closure of the pixel paper mill there.

The mill did closed this month, despite the efforts by you and others to keep operations afloat longer.

But when we talked, you also mentioned that you had ordered an audit of Ohio companies that might find themselves in similar situations.

Over the next few years, you wanted to identify the I think it was, in your words, the next 20 Chillicothe.

These, perhaps prevent them from getting that far.

I'm curious, what's the status of that audit?

Have you found another Chillicothe on the horizon?

Yeah, absolutely.

Henry, thank you for asking that.

That's really important.

Look, this is a town, small town, great community.

Actually was Ohio's capital at one point, and you had 868 families that did the right thing.

They went to work every day.

Their best.

And because private equity came in eight years ago, two private equity companies and got into this place.

This place is making $50 million a year in profits, $50 million a year.

They sucked all the money out, left nothing there.

And the place closed.

And you have 868 families that are completely in shell shock.

A brutal, brutal situation.

The good news is that there's as a result of elevating this story to a national level up until including this morning, we've gotten lots of phone calls of businesses that want to take over that facility.

We have to make certain that we vet that very carefully, because what we don't want to do is replace one disaster with another.

But I'm confident that we'll be able to make that happen.

And in terms of the audit of other companies, we have, if it's a little inside baseball, but there's something called a Warn notice was, which requires companies that have a certain amount of employment to issue notices and, let people know there's going to be displacements that are more than a certain amount of workers for 60 days.

That's what they did in the pixel facility.

We want to expand that to six months when that company has a disproportionate effect on a community.

And I think that's really important.

I'm hoping that, some Democratic colleagues join me in that, that we have the six month window to give time to make sure that we can find somebody else.

The challenge we had with pixel is that the time was so condensed.

Now, we got them to extend an additional 60 days and originally committed to the end of the year.

But the important piece of it is that we have the ability to make input as to who that next user is.

So it's not just some liquidator that doesn't have employment there.

You've been vocal about what's going on with Intel, and in Ohio you've asked for an investigation into whether the company misused some of the public assistance it's been offered for its, its plans here.

Bloomberg reported last week that the Trump administration is considering having the United States take a stake in Intel, partially to help fund Intel's Ohio commitment.

Do you support the US bailing out the company in this way?

No, no, no, it's not a bailout.

What you're told, is it?

No.

Here's what you got.

So what the Chips act said with the Chips act said we're just going to write a check for $8 billion.

Intel to the Chips act said again, you can agree.

That's not agree, but that's what the Chips act said.

So Intel applied and Intel got to be exact, $8.7 billion.

So the US taxpayer said, hey, we're going to give you the money.

Here you go.

Make semiconductors in America.

What's happened?

Facility sitting there.

It's a big, gigantic construction site.

It's not producing anything.

So what President Trump is saying, which I 100% agree on, is if a company is going to ask for help, if a company is going to ask for money, the taxpayer should get equity.

So we have the upside.

So Intel has a market cap of roughly $80 billion.

So they're going to get $8 billion 10%.

Then we should get 10%.

And then as a company becomes successful we can sell that equity and recoup the money for the taxpayer.

To me, that's common sense.

Just giving handouts to corporations makes no sense to me.

And there has to be accountability on what the promises were made, where, by the way, the state of Ohio is already invested tremendous amounts of money widening roads and building infrastructure.

If there's not going to be a father, that's a problem.

That's a misuse of public dollars and the use of our trust.

So it's just two different approaches.

One is hand out to corporations.

By the way, all that does encourages grift, quite frankly.

Corporations that have better access to to DC than others versus a much more sensible solution that has terrorists along the way, which says, well, if you can make your semiconductor chips elsewhere, but we're going to put tariffs in place, and that's the encouragement that the companies need to make them here.

And you're seeing that Nvidia and TSMC are investing hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money to build semiconductors in the US with zero, money for the US taxpayer.

Like many of you are an initial skeptic of Donald Trump back in 2016, but you have become one of his most loyal supporters in the US Senate.

He endorsed your Senate campaign.

But I'm curious, what is one issue that you would handle or approach differently than the president has on how.

Well he's doing in the second term?

I think in the first term there was some hires that were problematic.

There are some people that, that I wouldn't have brought on the stage of that quite a bit.

That's a big one.

Is there anything about his temperament or his approach in the second term that you look at and are like, maybe that's not.

The I think he's doing a great job in the second term.

We've got.

We've got we got we got look again, let him answer the.

So as I'll give you, I'll give you an easy I'll give you an easy contrast.

I'll give you an easy contrast.

When did the war in Ukraine start?

When did the war in Ukraine start.

And everybody.

All right.

So.

So here just I said facts.

Facts are annoying things.

I mean, that's that's that's could be that could that that's coincidental.

It started during.

The is it coincidental or how's that coincidental.

Because they took Crimea under Obama.

They what it has to do with is a projection of American strength.

Look, look, look, look what we just saw in the white House.

It's just, again, good facts.

Yeah, yeah.

We're going to have time for your your question.

I mean, you've you've endorsed legislation, suggesting that the President Trump should be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

He should.

And it wasn't.

I don't.

Are you are you pleased with.

Are you pleased with this?

And I would like to I have time for like, two more questions.

So I would like to get them in before we turn it over to you.

What's your major malfunction?

I would Nobel peace.

I would like to know, your thoughts on his interactions with Vladimir Putin over the last week?

I mean, was he is he giving away too much?

Is he being too deferential to to the Russian president in their meetings?

Look, the war is not America's war.

It's not America's war.

We're not there.

And it's not.

If the war continues to the war ends, it doesn't change the lives of Americans is a be clear.

We are.

We have a president that's trying to end a conflict that's primarily in Europe.

The war has to be ended by the people in that war.

That's Ukraine and Russia.

You have to be able to get both sides together to the table to end the war.

Wars are very difficult to end.

They're very easy to start.

And what he's doing is exactly that, by the way, ended a conflict in Cambodia.

By the way, I'm not the only one saying he should get the Nobel Peace Prize for 70,000 monks, in Asia yesterday, by the way.

So, look, this is this is exactly what he's doing.

Ended a conflict between India and Pakistan.

These are two nuclear powers and a war in Africa.

And it's a war.

In Eastern Europe, we have a secure border, which is a big deal.

And we're going to end the war in Ukraine.

This is what he is.

This is what American strength means.

And again, you can here's part of the problem that I find in DC.

Just to be super blunt, there's people who have such deep, irrational hatred towards President Trump that literally words can't penetrate their brains because the derangement of hatred is so high.

But but that's just what I'm laying out to you is just facts.

These wars and conflicts did end in the last seven months.

You may not like that it did, but that's actually the truth of what happened.

And yes, he should and probably will end up getting the Nobel Peace Prize.

I have one more.

I have one more question for you before we turn it over, to the audience, that's a topical one.

Given some of the politics of this week.

Former Senator Sherrod Brown, who you unseated last year, announced that he is running in the special Senate election next year against Republican.

Senator John, who said, you did.

You did beat Sherrod Brown last year.

It mentions how much money has been spent in that race.

What's what is his biggest strength, though?

What does John Hughes Ted most need to worry about in an election with Sherrod Brown?

What will make him, a tough opponent?

You know, I don't I'm not a political pundit.

I don't know, I'm not I'm not somebody who's going to comment on politics.

That's your job.

My my point of view is that it's interesting to me that the Democrat Party has nobody else other than a 50 year politician who's been in DC forever, who's never had a job in the private sector, is the only solution.

I think it's sad, honestly, because as I travel the state, there's lots and lots of Democrats that are younger, more diverse, that could run, but they don't run a record of fighting for work that has driven.

So.

So the record of fighting for working people is different than a record of actually accomplishing something for working people.

Those are two different things.

So while I and look the guy, it's just again, I look we need a strong Democrat party in this country and we don't have one right now.

Because again, the only solution, the party that claims to be the party of youth and diversity is looking for a guy who would be almost 80 years old at the end of his term as the only answer to their equation.

That's I look at that and say, it's a shame, because what it does, it suppresses the voices in the Democrat Party that want a new generational change.

And that's just a fact.

So look, if that's it and and by the way, it's all precast for you.

If you're a Democrat, you have no choice.

You will have him as your nominee regardless of maybe if you want something different because that's what you've been given.

So it's a shame that that's the case.

But John Hughes is going to win that election.

There's no question in my mind about that.

When you said you don't do punditry.

I think he's going to win.

That's not punditry about Kennedy.

Well, thank you very much.

Senator Moreno, we're about to begin the audience Q&A for our live stream audience.

I'm Henry Gomez, senior national political reporter at NBC news.

Today we are joined by U.S.

Senator Bernie Moreno, and we are talking about the work of the Senate and its impact on the state of Ohio.

We welcome questions from everyone.

So we called members, guests as well as those joining via our live stream at Cityclub.org I'll remember to keep your questions short to the point and actually a question so we can get to as many of them as possible.

If you'd like to text a question for Senator Moreno, please text it to (330)541-5794.

That's (330)541-5794.

And city club staff will try to work it into the program.

May we have the first question, please.

We do have the first question.

Senator Moreno NASA recently eliminated 4000 jobs.

That's about 20% of the agency's total workforce.

This is likely going to impact U.S. space dominance as China and Russia continue to rapidly build out their space programs.

Are Senate Republicans committed to holding the administration accountable on this important national security issue?

Well, it's not only important for national security that's important to Cleveland.

So Sean Duffy, who's our secretary of transportation, is also the NASA administrator.

He's a dear friend.

And we're going to get him out to Cleveland.

We were supposed to do it this month, but schedules clash.

But we'll get them out here at NASA.

Glenn is really, really important, and we certainly have to invest in that.

We want to make sure that we have, dominance of especially the South Pole, the moon, where there's a lot of resources and lots of capability is there that we have to take advantage of.

And a lot of that technology and knowledge lives here in Cleveland, which we should be all very, very proud of.

So when we get them out here, I suspect that we'll see, a big increase in funding there for NASA.

We already did that.

And the appropriations bill that just passed out of the committee I'm on in Commerce.

Chairman Cruz, who's the chairman of the Commerce Committee, is deeply committed to this, obviously represents Texas.

So we we feel very bullish.

And where we are with NASA.

All right.

Thank you.

So Nikola at with SDI we help entrepreneurs start and grow businesses by providing training capital and networking events.

So, just a question.

Ohio has over 1.1 million small businesses employing 43.8% workforce.

So, Senator Moreno, given your support for deregulation and tax reform, how do you plan to ensure that historically underserved businesses in Ohio, especially those in minority and rural communities, aren't left behind in a system that often favors large corporations?

Well, you know, I was a small business owner myself.

So there's not a lot of us in the United States Senate.

Most of them are career politicians that are there.

So obviously we did that in the bill.

Having tax certainty is really, really important.

We had a situation where ironically, again, this is a little inside baseball.

If you're a C corp, meaning a larger corporation, you had permanent C on taxes.

But if you're a passthrough entity or an S corporation like my companies were, those are the, the tax rates that expired this year.

We're due to expire this year.

So we made those rates permanent.

That was really, really important.

So that we balance out, the benefits to small businesses versus large companies.

So those are the most important things that we did is that we can do as a government, federal government is make certain that we have a good tax environment, that we have a good workforce.

We invested, by the way, in Pell Grants, we increased eligibility for workforce type programs to be more eligible for workforce.

I'm sorry for Pell Grants.

I think that's really important.

We also make certain that obviously housing is really important.

And we had historic, investment in low income tax credits, more than doubled the amount of low income tax credits are available.

Because, again, you need a good workforce, a good housing tax environment.

And also bank deregulation was really important.

Banks were not lending money.

They were being choked, by regulators.

And we've opened up that aperture quite a bit.

So the banks are more able to lend to businesses that we're going to continue to do some other things in the banking world.

And part of which is the fed controls, which is lower interest rates.

But we also have to make certain that we don't have any businesses that are deep bank and that treating our businesses fairly.

Senator, thank you for coming to the City Club.

As a long time member, I wanted to thank you for representing, recognizing that we're we're the source of.

Of civil debate.

And we've.

Been that way for 100 years.

So thank you.

That being said, let me give you.

A city club question.

And my question has to do with whether you have the ability and the courage to tell the truth, particularly tell the truth to power.

All right.

Civil.

Let me be let me be specific.

After the 220 election or the 2020 election, you congratulated Joe Biden, and you tweeted, for Donald Trump to make claims of a fraudulent election without proof is potentially irreparable harm to the United States by December of 2021.

You said in an ad President Trump says the election was stolen.

And he's right.

So that's issue number one.

After the attack on the Capitol in January of 2021.

You said Trump deserves lots and lots of blame for this.

You said he didn't calm tensions.

No one, and certainly not me, has excuses for that behavior by 2024.

Senator, you were defending Trump's pardons for violent criminals who beat police officers.

Number three, you voted to.

I'm going to give you you can you can choose an individual question or you can choose a general question, individual questions.

So what's the truth about the senator?

What's the truth about the 2020 election?

Was it stolen, Senator?

And what's the truth about January 6th, Senator?

Were they patriots or felons?

Well, look, it's the 2020 election is, pretty straightforward that the suppression of information around the Hunter Biden laptop story clearly altered the election.

It's the fact again, you can you can these are these are just provable facts so that that's again, you may not like the answer you ask the way I answered I just gave you it's it's it's 100% true.

The the, Hunter Biden laptop story was actually worse.

It's much worse than what people are told.

Much worse.

And that story was supposedly Russian misinformation, which is it was clearly not.

And that that also the election absolutely that Trump well, obviously Joe Biden was president for four years.

I get the question was Joe Biden the legitimate president?

United States for four years, he was legitimately the worst president, the United States, for four years, right.

It facts.

And quite frankly, I have done quite a bit of research.

Not only did I get facts from one source, but from several sources.

And I chose those from the Cato Institute, which is a conservative think tank, and we're hearing that they are getting that ISIS getting, making our streets safer by taking hardened criminals off the street.

However, it is a fact that only only 35% of the people who are being taken off the street have any, any record whatsoever.

And sometimes it is very minor, such as not having a dog on a leash or, or a traffic violation.

And only 7% have ever committed any violent crime whatsoever.

These are facts, sir.

But the government is saying that they are only apprehending violent criminals.

What are you doing, sir?

To rectify the misinformation that is coming out of this administration that is putting people at risk, ruining lives and reputations, and making this country a country that is eliminating, the due process of the of the letter of the law in our Constitution.

So are you are you at as is your question.

We why we.

Are.

My question is, what are you doing to rectify the misinformation?

Well, again, I look it's very clear and I've been clear in my campaign.

Clear now, President Trump was clear in his campaign and clear now that if you're in this country illegally, you're going to be deported.

That's simple.

And by the way, as illegal immigrant, I find it extremely offensive that people get rewarded for breaking our laws to come here.

And I find it equally, I find it even more offensive that I hear things like, well, who's going to do these jobs?

Like it's is it a, something that you think that Hispanics are here to clean your homes and mow your lawns?

That's deeply offensive.

So so it's what it is.

So people people are here.

If people are here illegally, they're going to be deported here.

You hear it?

You're not going to do anything.

We're we're following the law.

If somebody is in this country illegally, they will be deported.

My name is Ann Gazi.

No crime on October 7th justifies Israel's collective punishment of 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza.

The ICJ, leading humanitarian organizations and Holocaust scholars have said that Israel's behavior is genocidal.

There are countless doctors who have testified that the the children of Gaza are starving, that they're being deliberately targeted in the head test and genitalia.

My question is, if we believe in human rights, we must opposed all crimes, no matter who commits them, and we should facilitate the release of captives on both sides.

And arming Israel more and more is not going to do that.

It's not going to release a single prisoner.

It's just going to perpetuate this violence.

Yes.

So knowing all this, Senator, now, why are you ignoring the Leahy Law law, Leahy Law, and continuing to support US weapons transfers to a government accused of genocide?

As I've just stated in July, you voted against us.

Stay 34 and 41, which would have stopped the sale of weapons.

So I'm asking, why are you ignoring the Leahy Law?

Why are you voting for these resolutions to keep funding them in July when you know these things to be true terms?

My question.

So let me just be crystal clear.

I have unequivocal support for Israel, Hamas is the reason that those Hamas started the, bloodshed in Gaza.

Hamas could end it as we speak to you right now.

Yeah.

Right.

This exact moment in time, Hamas could end the conflict and they're choosing not to.

And that is the reality of the situation.

This is a total problem caused by Hamas that can be fixed on Hamas.

And Israel is defending itself, and I support them unequivocally.

I guess I'm up.

Thank you for coming.

Focus on slavery in woke exhibits.

The elephant, at least for me, that's in the room right now.

The president recently talked about the Smithsonian in terms of issues pertaining to slavery, exhibits wants more brightness.

And I'm going to read you quickly, a quote that comes from James Smithson, who is the founder of the Smithsonian under the name of the Smithsonian Institution and Establishment for the Increase of Diffusion of Knowledge in the Smithsonian, says they continue to support that.

I guess when you think about diffusion of knowledge, you have to think about individuals carrying knowledge to new environments, essentially.

And I'm getting to the question essentially, this is the spread of understanding and the awareness of a particular subject matter.

So, Senator, my question to you is this, what would you say to Donald Trump about his recent statements in terms of removing any historical data, information pertaining to slavery, fact, fact.

We're talking about facts.

Slavery is was and again, still is negative.

Yeah.

I'm not familiar with it.

I'm not familiar of the recent statements that you're discussing.

I just it's just not.

You said it just happened.

I have no idea.

I've not read that again.

In the past 48 hours, I have not read that.

I will I will remind the audience that it was radical Republicans that actually ended slavery in this country against the opposition of Democrats.

Go ahead.

Skip.

It was our party that did it.

I could only blame.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for the, for being here today and being in the, the mouth of the lion, so to speak, and taking all of the abuse and all of the stuff and an uncivil crowd.

Thank you so much.

You've got a lot of supporters.

There's a lot of people.

Clearly, President Trump got, elected an overwhelming result in the election process.

You were elected by overwhelming, overwhelming, electorate.

And so we really appreciate I'm going to we really appreciate this.

So here's the question.

What could we do as supporters to help you?

We want to further Trump's agenda.

And I don't think that the Congress is stepping up to really help Trump to pull on the oars.

What can we do as supporters to help Trump and to help you?

You know, I think I think one of the things that I think you're seeing, I think you're seeing here today, I think you're seeing here today, which is kind of unfortunate.

You know, I grew up in a household in which, political dialog and discourse was encouraged and the, the incivility of our political, situation today is pretty bad.

It's just pretty bad.

And it's it's just it's something that I hope we fix.

I hope we can be better citizens, and be able to have intelligent conversations without name calling or just flat out odd statements.

It just doesn't make any sense.

Public policy should have a vibrant discord.

I think the, City Club, Dan, to what we talked about earlier, has a long tradition of having free speech.

And that's something that's a blessing in this country.

And I think we should all look inward first and say, what are we doing to make the dialog better?

So the answer to your question of what you can do is have more civil political dialog.

You don't have to lose friends or you don't have to be angry at family members because you disagree with their point of view.

In fact, I think it should be the opposite.

Why don't you try for a minute to understand somebody else's point of view?

Them.

Hello.

Ohio Secretary of State, the Republican Frank Larose has audited our elections and confirmed a 99.9% accuracy rate.

I have an 89 year old mother and neighbors who travel for business who all vote by mail.

Recently, President Trump has stated that he wants to abolish Mail-In voting due to unsubstantiated fraud.

As you know in our U.S. Constitution, the states are given the power to run elections.

Given the current atmosphere, I'm concerned that the Senate and Congress will bend to the president's whim and try to change election laws in the states.

How will you vote if there is a bill to change our Constitution in regards to voting?

Well, nobody's looking to change the Constitution.

You know, that's a very high hurdle to do that, to change the Constitution.

Last time it was done was a long time ago.

The, state of Ohio.

We should be very proud of that.

Does a good job with elections.

I think we should be very proud of the fact that Ohio has really good elections.

Nobody disputes the outcome.

I think that's great news.

There are some states that haven't been doing such a great job, and we have to make sure that we fight, voter fraud as much as humanly possible.

I think all of us should be on that side.

But just to be crystal clear, the only Congress that's introduced federal, election laws was the previous Congress that introduced something called H.R.

one.

It was actually the first bill introduced when, President Biden took office and it was to federalize our elections.

So, just to be clear, we're on the side of, states rights and saying, hey, states should manage that.

But at the same time, it is a federal obligation to make sure those state, those states are doing a good job of making sure they're ensuring that people who are ready to vote actually vote and that the elections are unfairly.

We have another text question.

Russia and Putin continue to attack Ukraine.

What are you doing to assure that Ukraine can prevail in protecting its sovereignty?

You know, it's a hideous war.

It's a hideous, hideous war.

Dan, over a million people have been killed or injured in that war.

The war, as I said earlier, should never have started.

It's a disgrace that it did.

What Putin's doing there is terrible, terrible human being.

Nobody disputes that, either.

We got to drive an end to this war.

That's what we're going to do.

President Trump's working on that diligently again.

You saw what he did yesterday in the white House.

Having all the leaders there, making sure that NATO is increasing the defense spending to 5% is a big step in the right direction.

But, look, we should all pray for peace.

This is a good example of something we should all be on the same page on, that we all drive the peace there in, This war can go on.

It cannot.

We cannot allow 6 or 7000 innocent people to die every single week.

It is a terrible, terrible situation.

What's happening there?

And I, for one, I'm on the side of peace.

And I hope this war ends very, very soon.

I turn hi, there.

I may have a palate cleanser, I hope.

I am here with the Chagrin Valley Rotary Club and most people probably know what Rotary clubs are.

We have a member who recently discovered, through his own experience and funding, 529 college savings plans for his family.

He ended up with some excess funds, wanted to endow, a fund at the Rotary Club to continue to fund vocational and academic scholarships in our community.

And we discovered that there is a tax regulation that makes it so onerous to do so.

It would actually have the amount of that donation.

We also discovered that Americans and their generosity often fund other people's education.

I would think that's something that we would all champion because it doesn't involve the government, but it would involve your help in getting that regulation changed.

And we came here today specifically to ask if we could work with you on that for the benefit of our future.

You know, students, whether they be vocational or academic students.

Well, first of all, thank you for doing that.

That's that's a great cause.

James, can you raise your hand back there?

Do you see, James, if you could do me a favor, we will be working on a second reconciliation bill this fall, like I said.

And that's the vehicle that we could get something that that fits.

So get James all the information so we understand it.

We know exactly what the roadblocks are, what has to be changed, what has to be fixed.

Then you have to kind of rally support to make it happen.

But thank you for for doing that.

Thank you so much to Henry Gomez and Senator Bernie Moreno for joining us at the City Club.

In my opening, I use the phrase respectful detractors, trying to get ahead of some of the heated dialog, which obviously didn't quite work.

I would just, off script, remind everyone that if we're going to continue to get speakers, like Bernie, like Senator Moreno here tonight, we have to, be a little bit more thoughtful in the way we're acting in the audience.

Yes.

You don't need.

Well, I think most of this audience would disagree, but I'm not going to get into a debate on that.

Forums like this one are made possible thanks to generous support from individuals like you.

You can learn more about how to become a guardian of free speech at City club.org.

The City Club would like to welcome guests at the tables hosted by Case Western Reserve University.

Chagrin Valley Rotary Club, Cleveland State University, Tri-C, Gigi Consulting, GCP, McAllen company and the Ohio Constituents coming up next to City Club on September 5th, Michael Shaikh will discuss the book of The Last Sweet Bite, which explores the impact of war and similar conflicts on the most essential of human traditions, her food and culture and cuisine.

He will be in conversation with chef and Marine Corps veteran Ben Bebenroth, and I expect that will be a little more peaceful and fun.

Can't imagine anything breaking out there.

On Thursday, September 11th, the City Club will be will welcome two NASA astronauts.

First, as Euclid, Ohio native Sunita Williams, who recently returned from a lengthy stay aboard the International Space Station.

Joining her is NASA astronaut Doug Wheelock.

The forum will mark Ohio Space Week in partnership with the Great Lakes Science Center.

Tickets are available for these and other forms at City club.org that brings us to the end of the forum.

Thank you once again to Henry, to Senator Moreno, and to our members and friends of the City Club.

Hi, Mark Ross, and this forum is now adjourned.

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