>>Good morning an welcome to Global Perspectives.

I'm David Dumke.

Today we are joined by two former members of the U.S. Congress, a Republican and a Democrat.

And as incredible as it is, they are talking to people about civility and why government works.

Welcome to the show, Congressman Dennis Ross and Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy.

>>Great to be with you.

>>Yes, it is.

>>So we are at a very interesting, challenging point in U.S. history, to say the very least.

But you both have have a history of talking to students, talking to others about the need to be involved and civically active.

How does that message play right now?

>>Well, in my point of view, I mean, it plays very well.

Look, they're hungry.

The students are hungry not only for knowledge, but for experience about how their future is going to go and who's going to be governing them and who's going to lead them.

So they're hungry for this, but they are very turned off by the protracted and the polarized nature of our politicians.

And that might be due to social media.

It might be due to actual events.

But if we can come into the classroom and talk to them, especially with a colleague from the other side of the aisle, they could see that it's okay to get along, even though we don't always agree on everything, because we have to seek resolution of these issues.

>>And I think the I agree with Congressma Ross that the students and young people are pretty tired of the divisiveness and they don't affiliate with either political party.

And I think that's wh you see, especially in Florida, this next generation, as they register to vote, they're registering in highe numbers as no party affiliate, even though what that means for them in Florida is that they're locked out of the primary system.

They don' get to cast a vote in a primary, which in some ways reinforces, the extremes of both parties, because only the most loyal party followers vote in those primaries.

And so when it gets to the general, these no party affiliates probably don't really love their options either.

>>So I was going to ask yo later in the show about reforms.

We kind of enter entered that right now.

So maybe we should talk i kind of the more optimistic side before we get into some of that, some of the other details.

But you, you, you both you represented very different districts.

Yours was the very definition of swing district.

>>That's right.

>>Very evenly divided.

Your old congressional district is now represented by Republicans.

But that was part of a redistricting process that, of course, in state controlled by Republicans tends to favor Republicans.

And in in Democratic states, it's the opposite.

And you your district was pretty safe.

>>It was once I once I firs got elected, it was pretty safe.

It was a very strong red district agrarian, just very conservative.

>>So when I ask about the redistricting process and gerrymandering and that influence on Congress, because if you are winning a seat as a Democrat, with 75% of the vote, your primary interest is watching is your primary concern, is the potential primary challenger, correct?

>>Correct.

>>Or the reverse in a Republican district.

So.

>>Oh yeah, my my issue was if was somebody going to run to the right of me, I always said if you run to the right of me, you're going to be in the ditch, you know, because I have to represen a strong conservative district.

But it got so interesting because with the term limits, when members of the legislature are being termed ou and they're doing redistricting or reapportionment, they were trying to cut me out of my district so that they could have a opportunity to run against me.

So we're all the same party.

It's all self-interest.

And so it bleeds both ways.

But, you know, I was very fortunate because I was from my district.

I would have been born and raised there, had good relationships, had served it in the legislature, and now had the chance to serve in Congress.

So for me, it was a safe district, but we never took it for granted that it was a safe district.

>>I think, you know-- >>It's different.

>>Yeah, it's totally different because, in a swing distric and my district was evenly split between Democrats, Republicans and independents was a third a third a third, which is a bi the way that the state-- >>And your district is right here in Orlando.

>>Yes, it's right here in Orlando.

And so it required concern about the left in a primary.

And then, a general election that was always very sporty.

I think what that meant was that serving and representing that district required listening to all the voice and trying to come to a decision that was for the best, for the entirety of the constituents and that moved this country forward.

But it it makes fo a very different kind of member.

I think when you have to listen to all the voices, whether they belong to your party or not.

>>It's obviously hard, though, to please.

You're not going to please everyone all the time.

So how do you how did you how did you balance the decision that you knew, all right I'm going to vote this way, but it's going to upset a good portion of my constituents.

How did you rationalize that?

That this is this is what I have to do?

>>Well, you know, I had the opportunity when I again when I was in the legislature to take on my party and take some votes that were against my party, that my constituency was, was appreciative of.

And so when I translated that in the Congress, I didn't fee I didn't agonize it out as much.

Again I was in a fairly safe district so that my my district trusted me very well.

And I think that when I made these these decisions to not vote with where their leadership was going, I was either given a pass or forgiven so that we could move on to the next one.

But my votes represented predominantly my interests of my district.

So they would give you a pass on 1 or 2.

>>Yeah I always starte every term with listening tours.

So I really tried very hard to tune my ear to my district to understand where people sat on a wide range of issues.

And then when it came to the actual votes, you know I ran it through three things.

Is this good for my constituents, does it move this country forward, and does it sit with my conscience?

And that was sort of my framework.

And then being honest with your constituents as to how you arrived to that decision, knowing that in a district where it's a third, a third, a third about two thirds of the people are going to be disappointed on any given day.

Right?

But being able to have those honest conversations about how you arrived to your decision.

>>You bot are talking about your district and voting in your districts' interest.

Do you get the sens that other members of Congress are motivated similarly or do they take more - in recent years, it seems from especially from the outside eye looking that members are elected and they're only doing what their parties want as opposed to what their states or districts may need.

You know, David, when I was in Congress, they had what was called the incumbent protection program, it was an unofficial program to protect the incumbents from any opposition, including of your own party.

But in order to receive that, you had to make sure that you were in line in lockstep with the party so they would help you with fundraising.

They would help you with polling.

They would help you with constituents concerns.

In addition to my my staff in Congress.

So there was this relationship that as long as you guys work together, you know you're going to be okay.

But if it came to the point where you were bucking the, the party then then watch out.

And I think we've seen that evolve even more.

We're now, as you pointed out earlier, you know, leadership may say, you know what?

Privately we're going to run somebody, we're going to primary them.

And so it makes it difficult for the members of Congress because, quite frankly, self-interest is always at the heart of a lot of people, including myself.

So you look at that and you got to overcome that because the self-interest must be the greater good.

I mean, that has to be the interest you have to focus on And that takes some discipline.

And once you realize that you'r only there to serve the people and not yourself, then I think you can come to terms with doing what you know is right.

>>Yeah, I think I think there's enormous pressure, to, ensure party unity.

And that's true on both sides of the aisle, especially in Congresses that are so narrowly held.

The leadership of both parties really try to hold all of their members, because 1 or 2 defection could make all of the difference in a vote, as you know, we ar seeing on a pretty regular basis during this Congress.

So there's just enormous pressure for party unity.

But I think moderate member or centrist members or members who are in swing districts however you want to call them, don't have the luxury o just coming to the House floor and voting their party.

They have to vote their constituents, or else their constituents will vote them out.

>>And you've seen a lot of the moderates, of course defeated in both parties.

>>Yes.

Yeah case in point, when I was in Congress, there was a a very conservative right wing member who voted against the speaker's initiatives, but he had a bill called Audit the Fed to audit the Federal Reserve.

Because of his vote, the speaker was very upset.

But the speaker instead of seeking retribution and pulling his bill, went ahead and let it have it heard because he knew he would have martyred him if he had either one, taken him off the committee, or killed his bill.

So these members that are in the extremes know that they can have an opportunit to have an even greater podium or greater place to speak their message if they are martyred or if they're singled out by leadership.

And that's a difficult thin for leadership to balance now.

>>So, Congressman, I want to ask another aspect of this, especially from a competitive seat.

We just saw in Wisconsin in a state judicial race, $100 million spent in a state election, which is astounding for a for a judicial post.

Again.

And you see this at a different level for each congressional seat.

But tons of money.

And obviously that leaves a bad taste with a lot of people, especially when you don't have limits on campaign finance.

Is it possible for it to have Congress function as it should, give where campaign finance is today?

We absolutely need campaign finance reform.

There's way too much money in politics, but I think the lesson out of the Wisconsin rac is that money isn't everything, right?

That money predominantly was for the conservative judg behind the conservative judge.

They outspent the Democratic candidate significantly.

And yet the Democratic candidate still prevailed in Wisconsin.

And I think, that tells you that, money isn't everything in politics.

I think it matters.

Your candidate matters.

Platform matters as well as infrastructure for each party within a district.

I would say that some of the races that we've seen here in Florida, you know, there's been a lot of money in them, but the Democrats have some work to do in building the party infrastructure.

Well, in your case in point of course, Michael Waltz' seat, the Democrat actually raised more money but it's a very Republican seat.

So-- >>Right.

It's hard to overcome a 2 to 1 Republican to Democratic registration advantage.

Yeah.

>>So what are some of the reforms you would advocate in terms of looking at Congress and making sure it functions, properly and better?

>>Well, the on thing that I think is important, I know campaign finance is important, but understand that campaign finance, we already have limits of what can be given or we don't have control over an oversigh like we need to is on the PACs, the leadership PAC that members of Congress create that can have unlimited donors.

And how long, you know, maybe we should put a sunset on the once you're out of Congress to that thing must sunset, the PAC that you control.

The difficult PACs to control are going to be those that are under Citizens United that are the dark money because it's somebody else's money influencing.

And you've got the right of free speech that you've got to effectuate.

And that can probably only be done by a constitutional amendment.

But, you know, one of the things I would love to see happen is I'd love to see the American public get more engaged.

And what I mean by that is, yes, not only register to vote, but actually vote.

>>Sure.

>>You know, if we are having just a fraction of the people that are eligible to register to vote, actually vote.

So as a as a candidate, I only target that message to that narrow scope of voters.

And I work on what they wan to hear to help me get elected.

If I have to broaden that message to other people that are registered to vote, that mean I've got to moderate my message, which means that I will not only campaign more moderately, but probably govern more moderatel in order to get myself elected and but that takes work a the community level, that takes work on the individual level to understand that we do have a say that we do have, you know, some input here, and we need to exercis that through our right to vote.

>>You know, I think looking at Florida, one of the things that might help, get candidates that aren't so extreme out of primaries is to have an open primary, especially since so much of our electorate-- >>Kind of like the California model.

>>Yeah, maybe there are a numbe of different ways to do it, but especially in Florida where so much of the electorate is now choosing to be no party affiliate, we are disenfranchizing about a third of the voters in the state by having these closed primaries where only registered Democrats or registered Republicans can vote in the primary.

And I think if you open up that process, you might get better candidates that come out of it for the general.

>>This - you're talking about voting registration.

So we say 50% turnout is a good year, but that's 50% of registered voters-- >>Correct!

>>Not even not even not eligible.

>>And eligible ones are probably, you know, it's probably 25% of the eligible ones that actually vote 25%, which means you only need 30 - 13% of the eligible people to register to vote that actually vote in order to win an election.

That's that's that's not many people.

And we we saw with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she won, I mean, when she beat Joe Crowley who was an entrenched Democrat, she did it very well and she did it with a with 13% of the registered voters showing up in that election.

I mean, come on, you get what you mean.

And I'm not.

No, no, no, no comment on her.

But I'm just saying don't complain.

Republicans or Democrats if you're not getting out there and participating in the process.

>>How do we get citizens more motivated, though?

I mean, they have a bad taste, their mouth watching things go on.

Again this is on a bipartisan basis.

It's not like, you know, even people were upset with President Trump-- >>Education and not just, okay, we're going to teach a civics course today in second grade.

And now that we did that, we checked the box.

And now you can move on to the next right.

No, we've got to have communities engaged and invested in K through 12 programs that encourage peopl to understand the civic process and their duties to be a good citizen.

And then we need to be abl to encourage that even through through college.

One of the program that we're doing is that we take high school students that aren't going to college and have them mentor with college students about good citizenship.

It's very important for them to understand that they're going to be th leaders of the next generation.

So if you want better leaders then be the leader you want to see.

>>I think one of the, Congressman Ross and I are here, in Central Florida on a program that is seeking to do some of that outreach to college students.

We're on the campus of UCF on a Congress to Campus program where we're to a lot of students about wha it's like to serve in Congress and why public service is important.

And we're doing it in a bipartisan way.

And as, the congressman said, showing that, you know, you can disagree on policy issues, but you don't have to be disagreeable.

>>Is it surprising some of the questions you get from students and other folks, you talk to, you're not currently in office, and maybe that takes some of the animosity out of out of these, these conversations.

But there's a genuine interest in hearing what you have to say in this.

And they want to express their views.

>>Yes, they do.

And it's interesting because I think we spend a little bit of time talking them off the ledge.

What I mean by that is they say, oh my gosh, we've got an imperial presidency.

Things are going to be this is like pre-war World War II Nazism.

This is going to be bad.

I said, wait a second, look at our American history.

Look at where we've been.

And also don't forget that we have an election every two years.

And the party in power that's in the white House usually doesn't do very well during that.

And by the way, Congress is an independent branch.

And as they get close to the election of the midterms, they're going to start peeling back and you're going to see the system work as it was intended to work.

So please let this thing play out.

But you can really let it play out if you will get involved yourself.

And that way you can have the influence that's necessary to get it to where you want.

>>Shifting gears a little you chose to serve both of you.

You you were a double timer.

You went to the state legislature and then the U.S. Congress.

But obviously you ran for reelection because you enjoyed the job.

So I want to talk about some of the reasons you actually ran and why you thought this is valuable.

The service.

>>Oh, I absolutely wanted to, you know, it was interesting.

And I tell the story that I always wanted to get involved in politics.

I always wanted to get elected, and I always thought it would be great to have the title.

And then when I lost an election and I realized that I let other people influence me, and I wasn't who I was, was one of them.

And I had to self identify as to why I really wanted to run.

And I was fortunate to get elected then to the Florida Legislature, and then the gravity of the responsibility hit me, and I realize that you carry the public trust, and if you carry the public trust, it's not about you.

It's about what can you do to leave a legacy of knowing that you made things better.

And as I built on that through the legislature, and I found out tha I was probably fighting my party more than I was fighting the other side, I felt better about my cause, and my constituency felt better than me.

And when the opportunity came to go to Congress, I followed that path and I found that same redemption of knowing that I was doing what I believed was for the greate good, irrespective of partisan influence was very fulfilling, and it made me feel as though this is a good thing for me.

Until when I decided that it was time to move on because I was concerned about our next level of leadership.

>>You know, I I can't say that I ever aspired to be an elected official.

I aspired to give bac to a country that had given me so much.

I'm a refugee, an immigrant from Vietnam, and I was given a chance at the American dream.

And so it's the reason why I left the private sector and went to work at the Department of Defense after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on this country.

And it's the same sort of motivation that when the Pulse nightclub shooting happened in 2016, I thought to myself, you know we have to change the kinds of people we're sending to Washington if we want to chang what's coming out of Washington.

And we want to see our communities safer and a better place to live.

And so I, I launched a long shot campaign.

I ran a four month campaign against a 24 year incumbent and surprised everybody, including myself, and won.

And that's how I found myself in Congress.

I believe in public service.

Whatever form that takes.

>>Very well put.

>>Excellent.

So, so looking at that, where we are right now with President Trump and things, and we had talked about this previously, Dennis, there's a lot of questions being asked about policy, but just as important is process.

>>Amen.

>>And tell me about some of the concerns you have with process.

And is that element of this whole discussion being lost?

>>Yes, but it's also being exposed.

And what I mean by that is, is that every president and their new administration, when they come in, they always issue, you know, a myriad of executive orders to challenge what the existing law is.

And people have to understand that executive orders can't create new law.

They can only expand on that which exists and only interpret that which exists.

They cannot create new law.

Well, then why are they doing this?

Well, because then they're challenging the courts.

That's part of the system that's working.

We leave it up to the judiciary to decid whether through this process of of executive orders, are we seeing what ther is, the legal basis to be done?

And I think you're seeing that a lot of pushback starting to develop now betwee the president of the judiciary.

I think you're going to see that through process wise, that members of Congres are going to say, wait a second.

You know, DOGE may recommend this, but they can't implement it absent an act of Congress.

And so it's our responsibility as Congress to take this on.

Again, I'm not taking a position on one way or another here.

I'm just saying that if you'r going to effectuate the change, you have to go through the process.

And this is a three branch of government process.

And it's complicated, it's deliberative, and it's that way for reason.

>>You know, while I agree that process is an importan element, I also recognize the, shortcomings of being able to explain it.

We used to have a saying on our campaign that if you're arguing process, you're losing because average Americans, maybe not the folks who are watching a sho like this, but average Americans who are just trying to make ends meet and, you know, take care of their family and get about their day aren't focused on the individual pieces of proces that make their government work.

What they focus on is the outcome.

Is my life better?

Are the groceries cheaper?

Can I afford?

Can I work a full time job and still afford to take care of my family and so, so often it's the outcome of the process in the policies that the average working Americans focus on.

And we have to find a way to communicate that better.

>>And I agree with that.

And I think that the average person doesn't care about process.

But we have to understand that those who are policymakers have to realize the process is the infrastructure by which policy travels in order to effectuate the end result or the resolution of whatever issue it is that's at hand.

>>So let's look at the issu of tariffs, which is obviously quite a big one now.

And you're talking about the end of the process as people are worried about how much they're payin for everything across the board.

Under under normal procedures a major bill of tariffs of this nature would go through Congress and would be vetted through a committee system and everything.

And that is lost on a lot o people, they have their lives.

They're not following minute t minute how a bill becomes law.

They want to see what the bill is at the end.

That now affects them.

So I get what you're what you're saying that.

But it's something like that.

When Congress has not played a role, it's just announced and everyone has to leave with the implications.

What is Congres supposed to be doing right now?

>>One they better be doing oversight, and two, they better b listening to their constituents.

And there's a reason that the founders made sure that the House of Representatives was elected every two years.

So they had to answer to and account to their people that put them there in the first place.

And so that's going to start happening, because I think you're going to see some economic pressure come back home to a lot of these constituent bases that are saying, we can't do this, and you're the only ones that can do something about it.

You know, it's it's it's it's a question of whether or not Congress is going to start taking the initiative.

They will, because the pressure of the constituency will force them to do that.

But right now, it's interesting to see how far the envelope is going to be pushed to watch the president impose tariffs, even his own people.

Elon Musk said the best situation is zero tariffs.

I mean, that's free trade.

And if that's the end game let's get there as soon as we can.

>>Right, right.

>>Yeah.

I - I'm - I'm particularly concerned about the tariffs impact on Central Florida and Florid broadly for a couple of reasons.

One is that we do have a significant, population of retired or senior folks, and they are reliant on set income, a lot of i coming out of their retirement accounts, which just saw a 20%, dip this last week.

And they don't have that kin of long game that they can wait for the vagarities of the market fluctuation.

Right.

So that there is an impac to retirement accounts right now that will impact, Central Floridians.

But the other thing is that tourism, we're already seeing, airlines and other companies start to reissue what their expectations are.

And our community is so dependent on tourism.

And if there's a recession, which, a lot of people are startin to increase the projections that it's likely to happen that's going to hit our economy pretty hard.

And then you layer on the cost o just everyday goods in a place that's already unaffordable as far as a housing perspective or whatnot.

And you really put the hurt on everyday working Americans, especially here in Central Florida.

What can Congress do?

Whatever they do, if they try to take back some of this tariff-ing powe because the Constitution gives Congress the taxing authority and a tariff is a tax, they need to be able to do it with two thirds of, of Congress, which means 67 votes in the Senate.

And it's hard for me to see Republicans being able to get, that hit that threshold to check, the administration's efforts.

>>And I think the presiden is also in a messaging position because what he's done is he's raised the awareness of the tariffs have been put on American exports.

Here we are exporting to all these countries and look at all the tariffs they've put on us.

Ultimately it' going to come down to Congress.

But Congress has to be pushed into doing something.

And I think that the part that the president is being very effective in is the messaging to say, hey, the tariffs are too high, so we're going to get higher and and it's going to leave a mess for Congress to have to figure out unless of course, it can be nego >>You have agreements like you have free trade agreements with several of these countries that have had tariffs put on them.

So how is that even an even explained?

>>It's all part of the negotiation, David.

I mean, and as I've said this before and this this president is the most unconventional negotiator I've ever seen before.

And we saw him put on tariff on on Mexico and Canada of 25% because they needed to put people on the boots on the border and stopping fentanyl.

And suddenly they did.

And they came back.

I think one thing tha I've known about this president is that no matter how sensational, how ridiculous the allegations may be, he's always willin to reconsider and to hold back.

I'm hopeful that this tariff war between the US and China does resolve itsel for the benefit of the consumer, because we're just too dependent on each other to be abl to sustain this for very long.

>>I was on the committee, when we negotiated the USMCA which is the trade deal with Canada and Mexico, and I think that it undermines, the, America's ability to engage in trade deals, because, it doesn't look like we keep our word and there is a leve of uncertainty and haphazardness to the way that these tariffs have been put in place that has confused our allies and definitely caused the markets to scramble.

Markets hate uncertainty.

And I think if the goa is to bring manufacturing back to the United States, there's not a business in this world that will invest in a country where they don't know whether or not the tariff will be in place or not in place, where the rule of law is being eroded.

So I think in some ways, the way that this tariff plan has been ruled out undermines the purported overall, goal that has been stated by this administration.

>>So we we're running out of time.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of other things I wanted to ask you.

Like, for example, your your, your, your, duties looking at January 6th incident which resulted in Trump, President Trump's second impeachment during his first term.

We don't have time for that today.

So we'll have you back another time.

But I want to ask something you both referred to and that is, you know the markets like predictability.

But also when we look at our for your former constituents day to day life, people like predictability.

This president prides himself on being unpredictable.

So where did the two meet?

Because again, this is affecting the decisions that are making now.

And there's it's a firehose of I think that was there was a word you us earlier of decisions being made.

Executive orders being issued.

And people haven't digested this, but it's the unpredictability of it that may be the most troubling aspect.

>>Yeah, I think the unpredictability part of what's going on has a shelf life, and I think that shelf life is probably to the middle of this summer when campaigns start getting engaged for Congress when, people are either upset, or confident in their 401(k)s and their investments, but that that unpredictability cannot last for very long.

The American public just won't stand for it.

And maybe it may lea to more people getting engaged and seeking the change that they want to see, which results in more predictability.

But yes, business people, governments, everybody like some sense of certainty.

It's how you forecast, it's ho you plan, it's how you invest.

And we're going to have investment in this country.

We have to have predictability.

So I would suggest to you that even though there's an upset, it's very unconventional and that it's very unpredictable, that within a period of a by middle of June, predictabilit is going to start moving its way back into the equation because people want to see something happen that they know they can count on.

I think what's interesting is if you look at some of the recent polling around voter sentiment, it appears as if the Republican base is willing to believe that this administration is playing some degree of 4D chess, and that this will all work out for the heralding the golden age.

And so there's a level of patience that exists within the conservative base.

But if you look at the broader polling of, the majority of Americans for the first time, President Trump's numbers on, economic, his economic numbers are not as favorable as they have been, and that has always been his strong suit.

In fact, he ran and likely won this last election because people believe that he could make the economy better.

But when you see this disruption, I think the American people are picking up on the fact that their prices aren't going down.

And the only thing that's going down is the market and their retirement accounts.

>>Well, Congressman, Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining us.

Wishing you the best of luck in your message of civility.

We definitely need it right now.

Good luck in all your endeavors.

>>Thank you.

>>Thanks so much for having us.

>>And thank you.

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