(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Raja Krishnamoorthi is an Illinois congressman representing the 8th District, which includes Hoffman Estates, Schaumburg, and other areas west and northwest of Chicago, and before his political life, he spent his childhood growing up in Peoria.

He joins us now.

Welcome home.

- Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

- Now, but you were born in India, correct?

But you didn't spend a lot of time there before- - Correct.

- Your family moved to the States.

- That's right, three months, and then came to the US, where my father was studying engineering at the University of Buffalo, and things were going well until suddenly the recession of 1973 hit us pretty hard.

But thanks to the American people, we were allowed to move into public housing and food stamps.

So I spent about half of my early childhood in those two programs.

Then my father completed his studies, and got a great job teaching engineering in of all places Bradley University.

- Now, when your family came over here, and you were so young, was his plan to get his degree and be a teacher, or did he wanna do something else?

- I don't think he was sure what he wanted to do eventually, but certainly get a graduate degree in engineering.

He ended up finally getting his PhD and then teaching.

- You were valedictorian at Richwoods High School, which, of course, is still there.

Tell us a little bit about your schooling in Peoria, and what things kind of stick out for you.

- Well, I went first to Northmoor School, and I met someone who changed my life.

Her name was Mrs. Middendorf, and she recognized the mischievousness in me for something else, and she told my parents, "I think he has a lot of energy, "a little pent-up energy, "and so, maybe we can get him working a little harder "on certain academics."

And anyway, I ended up going to, I think it's called Reservoir School now.

It was called Washington School back then, and it was an excellent experience.

I have some lifelong friends still from that time there, elementary school, and then went to Richwoods.

And I have to say, you know, the Peoria Public Schools, District 150 was kind of the gateway for me and my brother to get an excellent public school education, and, you know, I was able to meet some lifelong friends in the process.

So overall, just an excellent experience.

- We mentioned you were three months old when you came to the States, but growing up, did you feel different than other kids with your Indian heritage, or was that not even a aspect?

- A little bit, I mean, I think that, you know, especially when you enter your teenage years, you start to notice a lot of differences, right?

And so, I think that my, every, I think, Indian American teenager goes through that kind of phase of life, where, you know, there's the American, there's the thing that the rest of their friends are doing, then there's what their parents are doing.

You know, it's how their parents are dressing, and eat, what they're eating versus what everyone else is doing.

Eventually, you become very comfortable in your skin, and that's certainly true for me.

I was very lucky to have friends and neighbors and community members who embraced us and all of our differences, and I think that in part makes Peoria a special place, and one thing that I try to communicate to people is be comfortable who you are, and if you are, then you'll be the best version of yourself.

- When you were growing up, were your parents, would you call them traditional?

- [Raja] Sure, yes.

- So did they give you a little bit of leeway in terms of, "Yeah, you know, mom, dad, I wanna do this.

"All the other kids are doing that.

"What can I do, or can I, do I have permission to stand out "and be my own person?"

- They were extremely accommodating of, you know, whatever we needed to do to succeed, and I think they weren't very strict with regard to, you know, "You can't do this, you can't do that," et cetera.

And so, I'm very, I feel very fortunate that my parents were very flexible that way.

- I always love to talk to successful people and find out about their first jobs, and I know that you worked at the McDonald's on University right by War Memorial, I think- - That's right.

- What did you do there?

- I was in the grill area.

My first job, technically, was delivering papers for the "Peoria Journal Star."

- Okay.

- But I think the hours were so difficult that even my parents said, "You don't need to do that."

But I ended up doing, working at McDonald's, especially during high school at that University and War Memorial, flipping burgers.

I'll always remember the very first day that I was at McDonald's flipping burgers.

Me and another guy were standing in the grill area, and he flipped a bun, and it landed on the ground.

So he kind of looked this way and that way, he looked down, he picked up the bun, and then he put it back on the burger, and from the corner of the restaurant, I heard the words, "You're fired," and it was not Donald Trump.

It was the owner of the restaurant, who was working that day kind of helping to manage the restaurant, and that taught me a very important lesson about character, you know, who you are when no one's looking.

And that owner, by the way, taught me how to, you know, wash the restrooms, clean the floors, you know, mop, and sweep, and wash the toilets, and everything, and I learned a lot of life lessons in that job in McDonald's.

- Did you learn that even though it may not be the fanciest job in the world, you need to take pride in what you do?

- 100%, and actually, one of the things I also learned was they take a lot of pride in the cleanliness of the restaurants and the cleanliness of the food, and that means a lot, right?

Because, you know, people are coming from all over, they're traveling, and to be able to come someplace where they can, you know, be in a clean environment, eat some good food is important.

And so, you know, I took pride in that.

- That's great.

Well, after Richwoods, you went on to study mechanical engineering at Princeton.

Now, did you look at your dad and say, "Hey, I like what you do, I kind of wanna do what you do," or did he give you a little push?

- Well, a little bit of a nudge- - Yeah?

- He said, you know, "Raja, you can do anything you wanna do in life.

I said, "Really?"

He said, "Yes, you could be a civil engineer, "a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, "computer engineer, or a doctor."

- Well, that's five choices- - Yeah- - That's pretty good.

- And I said, "Wow, that's amazing."

And so, I ended up getting a BS in mechanical engineering.

Some people say I practice the BS part now, but in all seriousness, it was a course of study that enabled me to learn a lot about the world, the physical world, and it also enabled me to develop some analytical skills, which I think go along with any engineering course of study, regardless of where you are, and I apply those skills even today.

- And when did you decide you wanted to go to Harvard Law?

- I think in my senior year of college, I knew that I wanted to potentially go into government, maybe as an appointed official.

That's kind of what I thought, you know, I was destined to do.

But I thought, "Okay, well, "I should probably get a job first, "'cause I don't have, I don't wanna rely on my parents "to fund a graduate education."

So I went back to work for a little while, and then that's when I decided, "Okay, well, maybe law school makes sense."

And so, I applied here, and I got in, and the rest is history.

- So after you get your law degree, how long did you practice law, and- - I did- - How long did you do that?

- I did that for about seven years in the private sector, in a law firm in Chicago.

Learned a lot, but then I went into government.

I became Special Assistant Attorney General.

I helped to start the anti-corruption unit, and unfortunately business was very good at that time, and then from there, I became Deputy State Treasurer, and then started a, not started, but I ran a small business after that for seven years.

- What kind of business was that?

- They make sensor technology, mainly infrared night vision technology for space and military applications.

- Wow, that's cool.

- Yeah, it was really, and by the way, that was founded by these entrepreneurs who were immigrants, mainly from Sri Lanka.

They fled the civil war.

They came to the University of Illinois, where they studied physics and became entrepreneurs, you know, coming out of the research that they did there.

- The American dream.

- Yes, sir.

- That's great.

So many of our politicians are lawyers by trade.

Do you think what you learn in law school just translates to politics?

- I don't know if that's the reason.

I think that what you learn in law school is you learn about the foundation of our government.

And so, to the extent that you learn about the foundation of our government, you're fascinated by it, you wanna help shape it, or change it, I think that people are maybe drawn into government service.

That being said, you know, now, I think there's a variety of professions represented in Congress.

And so, I think really, you know, people who have a love of country and wanna make a difference can actually do so, regardless of their background.

- Tell us at what point you met Barack Obama.

- I met him at a, I think a reception in 1999, when somebody said to me, "Hey, you should meet this gentleman "who went to the same law school you did."

He made the mistake of inviting me to lunch.

And so, I ended up working briefly as a volunteer on his 1999, 2000 congressional campaign.

He did not take the gold medal at that point, but the silver.

He lost to Bobby Rush, who just recently retired from Congress, by the way.

Then he ran for Senate in 2002, and at that point he said to me, "You know, can you help me again?"

I said, "Of course, how much does it pay?"

He said, "Nothing," and I said, "Sign me up."

And so, I became a volunteer, and eventually his policy director for that Senate campaign.

- Wow.

What kind of an effect has he had on your life in terms of do you look at him like a mentor?

- You know, I do.

I think that his victory symbolized to me that the people of Illinois are great people, you know?

The likelihood of someone of his background and his name winning a seven-way primary and then becoming US Senator and eventually president was very slim according to the prognosticators and the pundits beforehand.

But as usual, the people of Illinois were smarter than that, and they assessed him based on his character, based on his record, based on his vision, and that victory to me was kind of a green light that, to anybody who wanted to potentially run for office, and I thought, "Well, maybe I could "throw my hat in the ring someday."

- And you did, and like Mr. Obama, you weren't successful your first time around.

Sorry to remind you of that.

- I took the silver medal the first time, yes- - You took the silver, but when you suffer that first defeat, what in your head says, "I gotta keep going, I gotta do this"?

- Well, I think the first thing is you don't necessarily hear that voice.

I think you first are humbled, and it's a very public humbling, right?

There are very few things like losing a political race that are so kind of exposing, if you will, of your vulnerabilities and everything.

So I think there's a little bit of introspection that happens at that point, and I kind of retreated a little bit into a shell, then eventually I came out of it, and I wanted to know what happened, like what went wrong.

I talked to people who I trust, and I said, "Well, maybe someday I could do this again."

But I didn't know when that time would be, and then four years later, Tammy Duckworth ends up running for US Senate, and I run again, and this time, I take the gold medal.

- There you go, and yeah, that was in 2016, so you start in 2017.

I do remember, you know, the TV ads that you had that were great, I think.

They really kind of put your name out there, so to speak- - It was a big deal.

- And just, "Call me Raj."

- Call me, yeah.

So that particular commercial has an interesting, I guess, pedigree at this point.

We didn't know what to do with my last name, so my consultant said, "Let's just make a commercial saying, 'Call me Raja,'" and I said, "Okay."

And so, then he did like a 30-second ad, which was basically, "Call me Raja, call me Raja, "call me Raja, Raja, Raja, Raja," and they said, "Here's the bill," and it's like seven figures.

It's like every penny that I have, every penny that I raised from everyone, all my family and friends went into that one ad.

And so, then I said, "Gulp, what's gonna happen now?"

So then interestingly, 40 miles away from my home, I went to a Starbucks in Bolingbrook, Illinois, and went to the drive-through, and the person at the drive-through window opens up the window, and she looks at me, and she's like, "You look like that Raja guy," and I said, "I am that Raja guy," and then she said, "No, you're not," and then she just kind of closed the window.

But I knew that whatever they had done had worked, because for her to recognize me and then for her secondarily to see that person on TV as someone, you know, who I couldn't measure up to (laughs) in real life was kind of, it was suggestive that they had created a good ad.

- Yeah- - And it ended up winning.

I ended up winning, and then we've done that similar theme I think two, or three times now, including in this election cycle.

- When you first get the job, it's gotta be like, "Wow, great, I'm excited," and now all of a sudden, "Oh, what do I do?

"Where do I start?"

Where do you start?

What were some of the first issues that you wanted to tackle when you got in there?

- I think that some of the first issues have to do with, obviously, what's top of mind for my district, right?

And at that time, it was 2017.

Donald Trump had just become president.

And so, what was top of mind, I remember, in January of 2017 was Donald Trump decided to institute a Muslim ban.

We call it Muslim ban 1.0 now, because there were at least two more versions.

There were numerous, and there are numerous Muslim Americans in my congressional district, okay?

And so, top of mind for me was how do I make sure that these people and others don't face this type of discrimination?

I remember that night that Muslim ban 1.0 went into effect, I was the first member of Congress to go to O'Hare Airport to try to free, I don't know, maybe a dozen Muslim green card holders.

These are permanent residents of the United States who are being detained and prevented from coming back to the US.

It was about as un-American a move by the Trump administration as I've ever seen, so I joined with others to free them.

They ended up coming out.

We ended up having to deal with repeated kind of discriminatory moves toward the Muslim community and others.

So that unfortunately was the start of my time in Congress, and after that, another issue that came up was the repeal, attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act, now known as Obamacare.

I had to repeatedly cast votes to prevent the repeal of Obamacare, one of the more popular programs now, which as you know provided incredible protections for people for preexisting conditions, allowing for (mumbles), preventing discrimination against people who can't pay, allowing people up to the age of 26 to be on Obamacare.

All that stuff was in jeopardy.

So those were a couple of the issues that were top of mind in January, 2017.

- Now, those are some big issues to start off with, too.

- Yeah.

- Do handling issues like that, and of course, you have to handle multiple issues at one time, what kind of an emotional toll does that take on a politician?

- There are a lot of late nights.

Those first four years entailed a lot of late votes.

We had a government shutdown at least twice I think.

So you had like literally government workers going unpaid.

Essential workers were mandated to continue working despite not being paid.

So you had like TSA officials and so forth who were like going to food pantries, not having enough money to even take care of their families.

And so, it was a really challenging first couple years.

For me personally, it was still the honor of my life to help my constituents.

So we had a lot of constituent services cases in those first three, or four years that we addressed, and we successfully resolved, but a lot of high drama as well.

- Speaking of drama, we've seen a lot of drama the last eight years, or so.

Feels like 80, but in 2018, you had a town hall here in Peoria with Congressman Darin LaHood- - Right.

- Who's a Republican, you're a Democrat, and it was kind of a feel good, kumbaya moment.

I believe one of the quotes that was used was, "We can disagree without being disagreeable," and I think that event that you two had, it's something we haven't seen lately, that kind of reaching across the aisle.

Looking back on that event, how important was that to do?

- I think that was really important.

Remember, that was 2018, so that was in the middle of the first Trump administration, and, you know, nerves were frayed.

People were very upset about what was going on in the country.

And so, for a Republican and Democrat to come together and have these joint town halls, we had at least three, or four, by the way, in different places, including on TV, including with you folks, and on the radio, and I think people wanted to see that.

People wanted to see people who were able to sort through their differences without name-calling, without belittling each other, and I think that's become a hallmark of the way I think I have tried to conduct myself in my office over the last eight years.

- Can we get back to more of that?

Because it seems like, again, that was only six years ago.

It seems like today that the Democrats and Republicans are just so far apart on everything, and it's almost like you have to be one, or the other, there's no meeting in the middle.

How do we get back to working together, both parties?

- I think that we have no choice.

If we actually wanna do anything that's enduring, it has to be bipartisan.

I'm the ranking member of a committee called the Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the US and the Chinese Communist Party.

It's got the longest name in Congress, just like me, my name.

I have the longest name in Congress, so I feel very much at home on this committee, but it's thought to be the most bipartisan and constructive of any committee in Congress, because people really are trying to practice what you and I just discussed, which is, you know, first of all, can we work on the things where we can agree, and then with regard to other issues where we disagree, maybe we leave it to the side until we can successfully, you know, build our collaboration muscles, and get something done, and that's what we've done on this committee, and I'm really kind of proud of that work, and I think it might be a model for how to do work in other parts of Congress, too.

- You're currently in your fourth term serving the 8th District, going for a fifth.

Where do you see yourself in the future?

You're still a young man.

Do you have any aspirations of higher political office?

- I'm just seeking a contract extension right now.

I like to say I'm going for my fifth term on the 5th of November.

I hope the voters give me a high five.

And so, if I can get that, I'll be very, I'll be very satisfied.

Again, this is the honor of my life, and I'm kind of tunnel visioned about November 5th right now.

- Okay, it's coming up quickly, that's for sure.

Let's end on a happy note.

When you come back to Peoria, and I know this has been a whirlwind trip, and I appreciate your time coming in here, are there certain things you have to do, certain places you have to eat, certain people you have to see?

- Yes, Avanti's.

I actually asked one of my folks to go and get Avanti's while we're talking, so I can have it on my way out of town.

On a serious note, I was here stumping for Dave Koehler, who's a state senator, a great friend and ally of mine.

Met with the trades and the unions, who have been great partners on a number of issues to me over the years, including on career technical and vocational education, which I'm passionate about.

I've helped to modernize the law that provides the funding for this type of work throughout the country.

And so, I wanted to collaborate with them this morning on it further.

And then I visited Bradley University, and I actually did a radio interview there.

I tend to visit Bradley every time I come, because I spent so many hours there, given that my father taught there for so long.

So I went there, and I actually saw his old office.

He taught there for 40 years, and I saw his old office, and then I took a little stroll on the beautiful campus and the quad at Bradley.

- That's such a come around moment, seeing your dad's name outside of his office.

40 years, that's a long time to teach.

- It really is, and you don't see people necessarily stay in their career for 40 straight years.

But I think that was emblematic of my father's love of Peoria, my parents' love of Peoria and Bradley, which has done so much for my family, and now, he's an emeritus professor there.

So he comes back every year for the emeritus luncheon, where he meets all the other professors and staff, and I catch up on, you know, what's going on there through those luncheons from him.

And so, it's a great partnership.

- And I'm guessing going from engineering to lawyer to small business owner to politician, he's okay with what you're doing now?

(Raja laughing) - I started with engineer, remember?

- Yeah.

- And that was the ticket to entry to my career.

But, you know, I think that what I counsel, you know, all young people, including my own, you know, I'm married with three children, is, you know, just do something that you love, be independent, get off your parents' payroll, but try to achieve excellence in whatever you do.

- Congressman Krishnamoorthi, we appreciate your time, and hopefully, we'll talk to you again in the future.

- Yes, sir, thank you so much.

- Enjoy your limited time here in the Peoria area- - Thank you, thank you so much.

- All right, that is our time for right now.

Thanks for joining us.

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