“We used to use the Tip O'Neill line ‘All politics is local.’ That's not true anymore. All politics today are national, and the party identification is awfully hard to crack.”
Heidi Heitkamp is the first woman ever elected to be a U.S. Senator from North Dakota (2013-19). Senator Heitkamp also served two terms as North Dakota State Tax Commissioner and two terms as North Dakota Attorney General as a member of the North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party.
A political career that started at 28 years of age, and has spanned over 35 years, has seen a massive shift in North Dakota’s electoral makeup. The Democratic party’s base once consisted of the elderly, the working class and small family farmers. That group has shifted almost completely over to the Republican party, replaced by working professionals as the party’s base. Democrats must now reckon with the loss of rural America as a reliable segment of their voter base. Growing up in a small North Dakota town where everyone knew their neighbor offered a glimpse in how to connect with rural voters and cut across party lines. “I think showing up, listening, and then doing something about it will help us slowly erode this partisanship that we see in rural America.”
The partisan polarization seen from Republican voters is due, in part, to ideas around identity. Swaths of the country feel judged by a more multicultural, multiethnic coalition more likely to admonish politically incorrect behavior. This has created a defensive posture and accelerated an urban-rural divide in American politics that has quickly turned states like North Dakota red.
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
SPEAKER
Heidi Heitkamp
Senator of the State of North Dakota
(2013-2019)
MODERATOR
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darsie: (00:08)
Hello everyone and welcome back to SALT Talks. My name is John Darcy. I'm the managing director of salt, which is a global thought leadership forum and networking platform at the intersection of finance, technology, and public policy. SALT talks are a digital interview series that we started during the pandemic with leading investors, creators, and thinkers. And what we're trying to do on these SALT Talks is replicate the experience that we provide at our global conferences, the SALT conference, which is to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts, as well as provide a platform for what we think are big ideas that are shaping the future.
John Darsie: (00:45)
And we're very excited today to welcome Senator Heidi Heitkamp to SALT Talks. Senator Heitkamp is the first woman to be a US Senator from the state of North Dakota, and I believe during her time in office she was the only Democrat elected to a statewide office in North Dakota. She grew up in a large family in the small town of Mantador, North Dakota. Alongside her six brothers and sisters she learned the value of hard work and responsibility leading her to choose a life of public service. She worked as an attorney for the Environmental Protection Agency before serving two terms as North Dakota state tax commissioner, and two terms as North Dakota attorney general as a member of the North Dakota Democratic Non-Partisan League Party.
John Darsie: (01:30)
As attorney general, she was a leader in the national suit against the nation's four largest tobacco companies culminating in the landmark Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement which required the companies to pay restitution to the states and transform their marketing practices. Senator Heitkamp saw firsthand the slow erosion of rural support for Democrats in rural states, which lead to a landslide victory for President Donald Trump in the 2016 election. After leaving Congress she founded the One Country Project to reopen the rural dialog between voters and Democrats, and help remind Democrats that rural voters have traditionally been part of that Democratic coalition.
John Darsie: (02:09)
Just a reminder, if you have any questions for Senator Heitkamp during today's SALT Talk you can enter them in the Q&A box at the bottom of your video screen on Zoom. And hosting today's talk is Anthony Scaramucci, the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm. Anthony's also the chairman of SALT, and I know Anthony and Senator Heitkamp I believe on the set of The Bill Maher Show where they appeared together recently, so looking forward a great conversation, and with that I'll turn it over to Anthony for the interview.
Anthony Scaramucci: (02:39)
First of all, John, the biographical information is fantastic, but then you get to the landslide victory for President Trump. What are you talking about? There wasn't a landslide. He lost the popular vote. What are you talking about?
John Darsie: (02:52)
Among rural voters I believe was the insinuation, that in 2016 he took what was-
Anthony Scaramucci: (02:57)
We're doing a little bit of fact checking early on here, senator.
John Darsie: (03:00)
I know you're sensitive about things related to [crosstalk 00:03:01].
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:01)
I've got to watch with this guy, because he's good looking, and he's blonde, and so we've got to push him back a little bit senator. Senator, thank you so much for joining us, and congratulations on your life of public service, but I'm more interested is how did you work your way to Washington? What was your path to becoming a senator?
Heidi Heitkamp: (03:23)
It's interesting because I never wanted to go to Washington. I always thought that the best government is the local government. I served a term and a half actually as tax commissioner. I was appointed right after Kent Conrad was elected to the Senate, which is always where Kent was headed, but for me, number one, I'm not a big city girl. I love living in North Dakota, so where you live makes a whole lot of difference in your life.
Heidi Heitkamp: (03:53)
I was able to do some things when I was tax commissioner that were fairly significant, and headed up a couple of national groups. In fact, you might find this interesting, the original Quill decision, which was a state and local tax decision, I litigated the Quill decision. We got half a loaf, and it was interesting as life hands you some opportunities we were able to help get the Supreme Court to reverse the Quill decision when I was in the Senate, and I was a leader on that issue as well.
Heidi Heitkamp: (04:27)
When I moved over to the attorney general's office, North Dakota's attorney general's office is incredibly complex, from running the largest law enforcement agency called The Bureau of Criminal Investigation, to the fire marshall's office, to running the state lottery. I also in that role served on the board of director's of our state-owned bank. I really enjoyed state government, ran in 2000 for governor and lost ironically to my seat mate John Hoeven who I had hired to run the Bank of North Dakota, all politics is very personal in North Dakota, and never thought I would go to Washington DC. I thought if I would reenter it would be another run for governor.
Heidi Heitkamp: (05:12)
Looking at what was happening in Washington, the failure of people to come together, to actually form coalitions to get things done, I just said, look, somebody's got to try and change that culture, and I ran in what no one thought was a doable race, and ended up squeaking out a victory in 2012 and was able to go really as a centrist, really go as somebody whose main goal was to bring people together to solve problems.
Heidi Heitkamp: (05:41)
I had six great years, wasn't able to repeat that effort. In the time, this is something politically, and not to just ahead Anthony, but when I first started in politics I was 28 years old. I ran my first statewide race, and my base were elderly, and working class people, and small family farmers. Those are the people who always routinely voted for the Dem-NPL in North Dakota. That completely changed. By the time I was done those people were the Republican base, and the more professional folks were the Democratic base, and you see that all across the board in the United States.
Heidi Heitkamp: (06:24)
I think when we look at the opportunity that we have to have an impact if you go with a real vision of what you want to get done, and with an idea that you aren't the only person with a good idea, you're not the only person who really cares about this country, and you go with respect you can get a lot done, and I think I was able to accomplish a lot in six years. What I wasn't able to accomplish is reelection.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:49)
But you're in a red state.
Heidi Heitkamp: (06:51)
Yeah.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:51)
Isn't that fair to say? How did you connect with all these traditional Republican voters, and then what would be the playbook recommendation for what I would say is a blue collar base that voted for President Trump that was more traditional to the likes of a Franklin Roosevelt, a John Kennedy, a Linden Johnson, but now are voting away from Democrats? It's a two part question. How did you relate to Republicans, and how can you get that base open to the idea of returning to the Democratic Party?
Heidi Heitkamp: (07:29)
I would tell you that probably since 2006 you really saw the change happening, and that's when people like Tom Daschle and even Tom Harkin. I don't know that Tom Harkin can get reelected in Iowa today, and those kind of traditional, more populous Democrats who represented the center part of our country saw this huge realignment, and what I will say is we used to use the Tip O'Neill line "All politics is local." That's not true anymore. All politics today are national, and the party identification is awfully hard to crack.
Heidi Heitkamp: (08:14)
When Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, two Democratic senators ahead of me, when they won about 20% of Republicans were willing to vote for a Democrat. Now, if you look at polling it's about only four, and so what happened to those 16%? What happened to the possibility that they would in fact vote? In my case, I outperformed Hillary Clinton by 22 points, so I did better. I did get Trump voters to vote for me. The only problem is Trump won North Dakota by 36 points, so it was a pretty big headwind.
Heidi Heitkamp: (08:55)
And I think the major piece of advice that I give people is show up, but don't show up empty-handed. And one of the reasons why I was successful, and you heard in the bio, I grew up in a town of 90 people. My family was 1/10th the population. We knew that we had to work with our neighbors in order to get along, and in order to get things happening, and I think it's that kind of cooperative "I don't know all the answers Maybe you've got an answer that I haven't heard before. Let's talk about it."
Heidi Heitkamp: (09:26)
I think showing up, listening, and then doing something about it will help us slowly erode this partisanship that we see in rural America.
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:36)
I'm going to make a stipulation, senator. You can agree with me, or disagree with me, but if I'm right then I'm going to ask you to think about what we can do to improve the situation. It feels like from my vantage point, and maybe I'm wrong, that there's anger in the system. There's some populism. There's some nationalistic rage. I think it's born from economics more than anything else meaning that people feel economically desperate, and so a result of which they're in a little bit of a rebel position, or a revolt position.
Anthony Scaramucci: (10:10)
President Trump capitalized on that. He became the avatar of their anger. I'm wondering if you think I'm right about that, or wrong, and if I am right about it what can we do to put down that anger, and make those people feel more plugged into the system again?
Heidi Heitkamp: (10:30)
You and I have had this conversation. I don't think it's driven as much by economics about it is about indemnity, who am I as a person, and are you talking to me. Claire McCaskill tells a great story, and it's about a guy who was in a gas station, and he looked at Claire when she was running again, and I'm paraphrasing, and he said, "You know, Senator McCaskill I voted for you. I voted for you, and I voted for you when you were running for statewide office." He said, "But I don't know I'm going to do it again because I know that your party's for African-Americans, and your party's for the homosexuals, and your parties for this. I don't know that your party's for me."
Heidi Heitkamp: (11:11)
And I think there is this kind of sense of you judge us in a way that's not fair. We're not racist. We're just trying to make a living, and simply because we may say something that's politically incorrect and you jump all over it that just makes me feel disrespected because that's not what I intended. And so, it's a complication that involves their identity and whether they identify, and I think that's the remarkable thing about Donald Trump is you take a multimillionaire, and we could argue about that Anthony, at least you take somebody who professes to be a millionaire from New York City, and somehow he was able to get people to identify with him and have people believe he was on their side.
Heidi Heitkamp: (12:06)
And so, what was that dynamic? And there's a really interesting article in the last couple days in a political magazine about the grievance, the sense that I'm not respected, I have a gripe. And I'm not saying that it's not, Anthony, that it's not driven by some economics, but if we simply look at economics I think we miss a bigger picture which is about reflection of your values, reflection of who you are as a person, and whether that's respected.
Anthony Scaramucci: (12:40)
How do we get these different identity groups to think of themselves then senator as Americans? As opposed to an America first policy, how about all of us as Americans first whether we're from North Dakota, we're from New York City, or you pick the spot, and whatever our sexual preferences are, or the color of our skin, we identify as Americans. How do we do that?
Heidi Heitkamp: (13:06)
We do it by electing a president who reflects those values and brings people together, and that was what was so dangerous in my opinion about Donald Trump is as he pursued power through grievance he could only do that by division, and so I think that the first thing we have to do is lead by example. I've been talking to a lot of groups about one idea that I had is wouldn't it be fun to see Ben Sasse and Elizabeth Warren do a joint town hall in Nebraska and Massachusets, to actually see people as people, to see Elizabeth as a person, to see AOC as a person, but also to have people in Massachusets see Ben Sasse and maybe Tom Cotton, although I'd doubt you'd get Tom to do it, as people with ideas.
Heidi Heitkamp: (13:57)
And I think it's going to take a big national dialog, but it's going to take people doing this outside of government, and I think that's where your world comes in, so let's talk about venture capital. Let's talk about where venture capital goes. The vast, vast majority of it goes to three states. How about bringing venture capital to North Dakota and listening to entrepreneurship, and people getting to know you, or somebody allegedly from liberal New York talk about how they want to help invest and grow the country?
Heidi Heitkamp: (14:32)
And so, I think we can do it from an economic standpoint, but we've got to start seeing each other as people, not as here you are, a redhead from Mantador small town North Dakota. I may be more complicated than that, and you're more complicated than the guy from Long Island, which is where I think you're from.
Anthony Scaramucci: (14:52)
I'm definitely from Long Island.
Heidi Heitkamp: (14:55)
Long Island.
Anthony Scaramucci: (14:58)
Yeah.
Heidi Heitkamp: (14:58)
You can try my accent, Anthony. You can try.
Anthony Scaramucci: (15:03)
Let me tell you something senator, I would've gone a lot farther in life if I had that accent. Okay?
Heidi Heitkamp: (15:09)
But I think it's about seeing each other as Americans. I did a stint at Harvard with Gary Cohn, and then I did a seminar for a year at Brown, and my first introduction to my seminar was what is it to be an American, and it was fascinating what these kids would come up with. And so, I think it is if we're going to do what we need to do you're asking exactly the right question, because if you think about World War II we were defined as the greatest generation. It was the external threats, always the external threats, that we were able to coalesce behind and put aside our differences.
Heidi Heitkamp: (15:58)
My dad's best friend in the Army during World War II was an Italian-American from New York. He would never had had that experience, and we don't have those kinds of experience that unite the country to common cause, and the threats now tend to be more internal, and it's a whole different challenge that we haven't had since The Civil War.
Anthony Scaramucci: (16:24)
It's fascinating you say that, because in the Woodward and Bernstein book, the second book, Final Days, they interviewed some of the senators. It turned out that one of the senators they were interviewing was Bob Dole talking about the resignation of Richard Nixon, and the very famous scenes of Howard Baker, and other senatorial leadership, Republicans, going to President Nixon and saying, "Hey, it's over. You're going to have to resign, or we're going to pull the plug on you with an impeachment."
Anthony Scaramucci: (16:53)
What Dole said in the interview, Senator Dole, is that it was impossible for him to see his friends die in Italy while he was wounded in Italy fighting for the freedom associated with the document the US Constitution, and even though he was a stride in partisan he was an American first, and the violations of the Constitution required him in honor of his dead veterans that he served with to say that to Mr. Nixon, and we don't have that right now.
Anthony Scaramucci: (17:25)
We have people that have served in the American military that maybe have physical courage, but there are Republican veterans in that Senate that decided that they were going to just strictly stick with partisan lines. My question to you, and this goes back to our pre-Bill Maher walking onstage discussion, which is-
Heidi Heitkamp: (17:47)
About how young you look, and how I look so old? Is that the discussion for now.
Anthony Scaramucci: (17:52)
Listen. Listen. I've cornered the market on North American boat docks, so if you're nice to me when you come to my house we can go into my garage, and I can show you where all my stash is. When we were walking out onstage, prior to I said to you, "We've got some issues here in the Republican Party." We have Trumpism, and you could have smarter, or different, and perhaps even more malevolent people pick up the baton of Trumpism. How would you react to that? Do you think that that's something that could happen? Do you think Trumpism is gone? Do you think Trumpism is with us, and with us permanently? What are your thoughts there?
Heidi Heitkamp: (18:35)
I absolutely do not think that this is simply a movement, or an attitude, that's going to evaporate if the leader leaves, and I told you I think Trump is a master at communication, and so he knew that there was this ability to motivate people who hadn't voted before, or to motivate people who felt like they had been left behind, or didn't see their image in government anymore.
Heidi Heitkamp: (19:06)
I always said the most interesting thing about the rallies is they're the largest focus group ever done in American politics. He would go out, and most of his lines fell like a thud, but how did he get to build the wall? People responded to it. Lock her up. People responded to it And so, he just built on this sense of dis-affectiveness, being disaffected from government, just built on that, and wasn't very good at pivoting or at least not irritating the other side to the point where he could win reelection.
Heidi Heitkamp: (19:49)
And so, now you've got the ability to take that grievance that he has ignited, and if it's not brought down, if the temperature in this country's not brought down in terms of partisanship it's right for someone like, and I'll just name names, someone like Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, who probably don't have the communication skills but they certainly are very, very bright individuals to step into that void. And it's interesting because as we're talking about this Josh Hawley has signed on with Bernie Sanders on a populist item, which is the direct stimulus payment.
Heidi Heitkamp: (20:31)
So clearly, not run to that fiscal conservatism that you'll see Ted Cruz grab, or perhaps Mike Lee, but going to fight for that Trump case. As Trump said, "We need a big stimulus plan. We need money being sent out." These are people who had the religion of debt and deficit before Trump ever came along, and that's fallen by the wayside. I think if you want to follow the threat of who's trying to be the next Donald Trump look to their populist rhetoric.
Anthony Scaramucci: (21:08)
It's interesting, and I'll share this with you, and you know this intuitively, but I'll confirm it. On many campaign rides on the Donald Trump candidate plain, the then candidates made an observation that his base is actually social conservatives, and fiscal-
Heidi Heitkamp: (21:27)
Liberals.
Anthony Scaramucci: (21:28)
Liberals. Exactly right. And so, the opposite of say a Wall Streeter who probably considers themselves fiscal conservatives, but social liberals, and so it's interesting that Senator Hawley is taking that position. I just want to ask a quick follow up question, and then shortly we have to turn it over to this millennial that's sitting there with those big white teeth waiting to steal the show from me, senator. He's waiting to steal the show.
Heidi Heitkamp: (21:54)
Don't let him do it. Don't let him do it.
Anthony Scaramucci: (21:54)
I'm not going to. I'm going to karate chop him in the Adam's apple when we're in the office again. Don't worry.
John Darsie: (22:00)
The show's not the only thing we're going to steal from you baby boomers.
Anthony Scaramucci: (22:05)
Oh my god.
John Darsie: (22:06)
You guys have driven the country into madness. Come on.
Anthony Scaramucci: (22:06)
Look at this. Heidi, he's going one on two.
Heidi Heitkamp: (22:10)
I have to tell you the line that I use all the time is I say my generation, a.k.a. us, the baby boomers, will be the first generation is American history that inherited from our parents and borrowed from our kids, so I don't disagree with you.
Anthony Scaramucci: (22:27)
Yeah. I think it's a shortcoming. There's no question the political establishment mishandled a very golden opportunity, but we've got to make it right, and so I want to go to that topic with you about universal base income, and livable income, livable wages. What are your thoughts there? What are the tools that we can put in place to make sure that most Americans, and let's say all Americans frankly, have decent living standards in the United States?
Heidi Heitkamp: (22:57)
Let me tell you this by story, and you'll get an idea of my attitude. When I was a senator a guy came in who had just bought a bunch of franchise restaurants in North Dakota, and we had at the time a huge problem with workforce, and I thought he wants to come in and talk about what we can to do to recruit workers, probably having a hard time [inaudible 00:23:19].
Heidi Heitkamp: (23:18)
And so, I asked him, I said, "So, what's your biggest problem?" And this guy says, "Well, it's the government." "Okay." I said, "What about the government? Is it food standards?" And he just kept saying the government, and finally he turned to me and he said, "You know what? Don't you agree with me?" And I said, "Well, let me ask you this, what do you pay your workers?" He said, "$10 an hour." I said, "Do you know what that is a year?" And I happened to know what it is, a little over $20,000.
Heidi Heitkamp: (23:50)
And I said, "Do you think they can live on that if they work 40 hours a week in their restaurant?" And he said, "That's not the kind of job it is." And I said, "But there are people working 40 hours who are putting in a full week's worth of week?" And I said, "And they qualify for food stamps, and they qualify for housing benefits, and they qualify for healthcare, so isn't true that the government's subsidizing you?"
Heidi Heitkamp: (24:19)
And we always look at what that person who is working their ass off in these kinds of jobs, and working two or three jobs, probably working 60 hours a week begging grandma to take care of the kids so the kids actually have some stability in their lives, and then we turn it on the struggling worker, and say "You need to work harder," or "You need to get retrained," or "You need to fix this." And I'm like maybe people ought to worry about how we're paying people in this country. That would be the first thing, is that we can't have wages that put people in poverty. We've got to figure that out.
Heidi Heitkamp: (24:57)
And I have a very prominent good friend who told me, "Look, you're never going to get that to happen, so you need to have the earned income tax credit." I asked Andrew Yang when I had a chance during the primaries, I asked him, I said, "Why are you doing this universal income thing when the earned income tax credit is how we've actually managed this?" And he just said it's a different way to talk about the issue because the earned income tax, which has been refundable, and been around a long time is not something people really understand very well.
Heidi Heitkamp: (25:35)
I think that we need to make a commitment to equalizing economic opportunity in this country, and it can't always fall back on the worker. We need CNAs in nursing homes, some of whom are paid $7 an hour. We need construction workers who do not need a PhD to shingle a roof, but they ought to be making a living, and they ought to have healthcare in their job. And so, I think that the first thing I would say when you said what about this I would say let's have a conversation with business America, and with employers, and talk about how we can help them pay higher wages so that people can earn their way, and it's not seen as a welfare program, because when you work 40 hours a week you shouldn't be on welfare of any kind.
Anthony Scaramucci: (26:24)
Listen, I think it's very well-said. I've got one last question, and then we're going to turn it over to our audience, and we've got a tremendous amount of audience participation. You voted somewhere between 50 and 65% alongside of President Trump, and some actually considered you further to the right then say a Susan Collins, a Senator Susan Collins from Maine, based on your voting record of course.
Anthony Scaramucci: (26:49)
How difficult is it to break from your caucus and vote based on the interest of your constituents, and is that something we'll see more of from the future Senates, or less of?
Heidi Heitkamp: (27:03)
I went there with the idea that I was going to vote my conscience, and with the exception of a couple votes I feel like I did exactly what I meant to do, so you can't always vote your constituency, and people from North Dakota would say, "What about Kavanaugh?" What I would tell people on those kinds of appointments, I said, "Yeah, you may have an opinion today, but I'm making this decision for 30 years, and so I have to use my judgment."
Heidi Heitkamp: (27:33)
And so, in most of the cases, and a lot of that voting with the president, those are all about nominations on tough votes. Let's take a look at Kavanaugh and the tax vote. I didn't vote for that tax bill, and I can defend it. My favorite quote on the tax bill was Michael Bennet who said, "Not only am I not voting for it, I wish I could vote against it twice." I thought that the tax bill was ill-conceived. I thought that we could've taken those dollars and redistributed them in a different way. I thought that it was heavy-handed by the president.
Heidi Heitkamp: (28:09)
I think his people, people like Gary would've come to some kind of compromise that would've created a stability in the tax code. What I would say is I voted my conscience, and people may say, "Well, and you got voted out by the people of North Dakota," and I said, "But at the end of the day ..." I always give the Robert Kennedy quote when he was talking to some graduates. He was talking about how privileged we are to be Americans, and educated Americans with all the benefits of this Constitution and the freedom that we have. And he said, "But remember this, you can use all of your benefit, and all of your opportunity, strictly for personal gain." He said that's what you can do in America. He said, "But remember this, history will judge you, and more importantly you will judge yourself as time goes on."
Heidi Heitkamp: (29:05)
And I think that idea of being a citizen, of caring about something bigger than yourself, you can say what you want about the Trump movement. I think they think they do care about something bigger than themselves, but I think we've got to get to that part of unifying America around the ideals that we have, and that have made this country the greatest country on the Earth since the signing of the American Constitution. I'm a big optimist, but I also think it doesn't happen without individual citizen commitment.
Anthony Scaramucci: (29:47)
Senator, it is always a pleasure to be with you, and thank you so much for doing this with us. I've got to turn it over to John now, because otherwise his agent's going to start complaining to me, and it is the end of the year. I have to resign him for next year, so go ahead Darcy.
John Darsie: (30:01)
It's in my contract. I get at least 10 minutes at the end of the interview, or I'm out, so thank you Anthony. Senator, you talked about how you don't think that it was completely an economic decision that voters made, and continue to make, when they vote for President Trump. One example is the effect that Trump's trade policies had on farmers and other rural voters in terms of direct economic impact. You maintained, or you tried to maintain, a working relationship with Trump in my view because you thought you could have an impact on him when it comes to trade policy, and you urged him to take a softer view on trade.
John Darsie: (30:38)
What was the ultimate impact of his trade policies on your constituents, and other farmers, and rural voters, and why do you think that they chose to overlook some of that potentially to continue to support the president?
Heidi Heitkamp: (30:50)
A couple things. First off, I don't think we will know that impact of this kind of bilateral take them all on at the same time, alienate our trading partners, our allies, who are both military allies and trading allies. We won't know what the impact is. I'm fairly certain it would be very dire had this president been reelected, and I maintain a different position than a lot of people in my political party. I don't think that we will be successful unless we embrace globalization.
Heidi Heitkamp: (31:23)
It doesn't mean that we get taken for a ride, or that we're suckers, it just means that we need to understand that the growing market that's out there, especially in Indochina is one that we need to have access to, and we can't walk away from it, and the only way we get access is by guaranteeing that there is enough trading partners to push back against the excesses and the wrongdoing of China, and I will put India, especially as it goes to agricultural products in that basket.
Heidi Heitkamp: (31:54)
There's a story, and I don't know how true it is, that when they were talking about trade policy they were very concerned in the administration about what would happen with farmers to which Wilbur Ross said we'll just buy them off. Billions of dollars. In fact, today about 40% of net farm income this year will come from the federal government. Farmers know that's not sustainable. We walked away from direct payments in the last farm bill, now we're right back in that soup.
Heidi Heitkamp: (32:22)
And so, to me the biggest casualty will be that we have allowed our competitors, whether it's Brazil and Argentina on soybeans and corn, whether it is looking at wheat from Australia, we have allowed our competitors to access these markets and making the markets that much more difficult to reestablish for American agriculture, and American agriculture is one of those few places in American trade that we actually run a trade surplus, so we in many ways have killed the goose that laid the golden egg, and we've got to get back to in my opinion multilateral trade discussions where we are pulling people together in a trading relationship that helps us get the best deal for in my opinion liberal democracies who want a free enterprise system, and if we don't do that we are going to continue to fall further and further behind.
John Darsie: (33:19)
Yeah. I think your views on trade are really strong, and I want to continue on that theme, especially as it relates to Anthony as well. President Trump reportedly early in his administration considered shuddering the US Export-Import Bank, and Anthony actually spent some time at the EXIM Bank prior to becoming communications director briefly, and he was also like yourself a big advocate in the president's year that we shouldn't just keep the EXIM Bank open, we should be much more aggressive in utilizing it because there're other countries, and competitors of ours, who use that type of bank very successfully to grow domestic business.
John Darsie: (33:55)
For people who don't understand what the EXIM Bank does ... Go ahead, Anthony.
Anthony Scaramucci: (33:58)
He likes bringing up my short stay in The White House because he just wants to remind all the viewers that I got fired from The White House. Well done, John. Well done.
John Darsie: (34:05)
I had to slip it in somehow. This one was actually one of the nicer references I could-
Anthony Scaramucci: (34:08)
Go ahead, senator. I just wanted to point that out to you how cruel he is. Go ahead, senator.
John Darsie: (34:14)
For people who don't know what the EXIM Bank does, and why you think we should use it more aggressively, can you just explain to our viewers everything related to your views on the EXIM Bank?
Heidi Heitkamp: (34:24)
It basically provides financing in terms of exports to guarantee that people in this country will get paid, and will basically be competitive. They do that with a lot of different mechanisms, but the one thing I want to talk about, because everybody says it's the bank of Boeing. Boeing is a big user of the EXIM Bank. It's the bank of Caterpillar, and all of these large organizations.
Heidi Heitkamp: (34:47)
The first thing I tell people is Boeing doesn't manufacturer all those parts. The largest supplier of Boeing parts for their airplanes is in Texas, and the worst trouble I had was with Ted Cruz on the EXIM Bank. I was the Democratic leader trying to get the EXIM Bank reauthorized. We actually shuddered it. Now, I don't blame Donald Trump for that. The first time I met him he asked me to come up and talk about a potential cabinet position before he was even sworn in, and you have your 10 minutes to pitch something, and I pitched of course American agriculture, and energy independence, but I pivoted pretty quickly to the EXIM Bank because I think that maintaining that infrastructure is absolutely critical.
Heidi Heitkamp: (35:33)
And it's interesting because Steve Bannon's on one side saying, "You're right. You're right," and [inaudible 00:35:38] is on the other side saying, "Paul Ryan won't like that." You could see that the battle was mainly within the Republican Party. There was some people, like Bernie Sanders is not a fan. He sees it as corporate cronyism. I see it as essential to American Jobs.
Heidi Heitkamp: (36:00)
We saw during the time that the bank was shuddered we saw GE lose jobs. We saw major companies shut down because they did not have access to an export-import financing agency in this country. It's unilateral disarmament. The bank needs to be back up, and we need to vigorously pursue economic opportunity. And if I can add one more ting, we have small manufacturers in North Dakota who would never have found an international market that they could take the risk in if it weren't for the EXIM Bank.
Heidi Heitkamp: (36:34)
Either the currency risk, or the risk that they weren't going to get paid for what they exported, and so this isn't just the bank of Boeing. This has the potential of giving access to markets for small American businesses that would never have access to market without an export-import agency.
John Darsie: (36:55)
North Dakota in particular it has another unique aspect to it in the state investment board. It's a unique institution among American states. We had Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey on a couple weeks ago saying in New Jersey we would like to copy this basically state investment bank that exists in North Dakota here in New Jersey, but it's challenging to get it up and running.
John Darsie: (37:19)
It's something that North Dakota uses to direct strategic investments, and to help incubate businesses in the state. Do you think other states should copy this model, and how do you guys use it in North Dakota?
Heidi Heitkamp: (37:34)
The state treasurers has a tremendous responsibility in other states, not so much in North Dakota, because all of the deposits of the state of North Dakota actually go to the Bank of North Dakota, which is our state development bank. I like to call it development rather than investment, our state development bank, that is by Constitution charged with helping farmers, helping small business people, helping our organizations, and it's interesting how that has in fact morphed over time.
Heidi Heitkamp: (38:05)
Just to give people an idea, they may say "Don't the banks hate you?" No, because let's take a small community bank that has a loan limit. They're up against their loan limit, but yet this is a good credit for them. They might have to go to a competitor like Wells Fargo, or US Bank, in order to share that credit thinking I'm going to lose that customer eventually because of my partnership. They can go to the state development bank, the Bank of North Dakota, and partner.
Heidi Heitkamp: (38:36)
The Bank of North Dakota does not make direct loans unless it's authorized, and so that gives the regular financial institutions, especially the smaller community banks the kind of protection that they think is needed. We do things like when I was on the board of directors for the bank we had a pace program, which was look you can charge ... At the time I think the interest rates are probably 5%, but the Bank of North Dakota will write that down and subsidize it to keep that business in your community, or to keep that business in North Dakota.
Heidi Heitkamp: (39:07)
And so, it's been am incredible model. I think it was born out of the Populist Movement in the early 1900s. We have a Norwegian heritage which tends to be ironically more socialist, so we also own a mail-in elevator. We also own the state mail that has been very successful in recent years after we got back on good footing, and so these are institutions that are well-regarded and well-accepted, and I think give you the investment and the development tool that you need like the Export-Import Bank in a state where you can leverage these deposits of state revenue along with good banking practices to basically reinvest in your state.
John Darsie: (40:02)
To build on something you said earlier about the idea of restoring dignity to different types of jobs in America there's obviously a very bifurcated experience now that Americans are feeling, people in these coastal cities that have a wealth of venture capital investment, and financial jobs are doing pretty well overall. Financial markets are doing well. The investor class is doing well. But as you said, people viewed Donald Trump almost like an avatar for their anger at how ell everyone else is going, and how happy everybody else is with the dignity that their job brings. How do we restore that dignity?
John Darsie: (40:38)
I saw the review of your appearance at Jeff Sonnenfeld's Yale CEO Summit about how you talked about the need to restore dignity into working class jobs. How do we do that at a practical level?
Heidi Heitkamp: (40:54)
This will get me in trouble. As we're talking about what we're going to do for student loans, so it's like I'm going to pay taxes on my $80,000 a year job where I have to work overtime to earn that. I'm going to pay those taxes, and I've been saving, and maybe I put my kids through college so I can pay for somebody else's college education. I'm not saying anything about the policy. What I'm saying is sit in that chair. Sit in that chair and look at that idea from that perspective.
Heidi Heitkamp: (41:31)
It's like because you went and got a music education degree I'm going to pay for that when I worked my way up through as a journey apprentice plumber, and now I'm going to pay for your education, and it doesn't sit well, and I think there are ways that we can talk about getting equity, and getting student debt forgiveness, that don't make people feel like they're being judged, or they're being asked to subsidize something that they never took advantage of. And so, I think that-
John Darsie: (42:06)
Anthony made a similar point on Twitter, the decision-
Heidi Heitkamp: (42:09)
Who did?
John Darsie: (42:10)
... to forgive student debt, and it would only accrue benefit to a certain class of Americans.
Anthony Scaramucci: (42:17)
John, you blotched out there on the internet for a second. He was saying that I made a point about student loan forgiveness, and go ahead John. I won't interrupt.
John Darsie: (42:25)
Basically, that it only accrues to a certain segment of the population, and people who might not of pursued higher eduction did it for maybe practical reasons, so we agree with you wholeheartedly.
Heidi Heitkamp: (42:36)
Let me give you an alternative. Here's the real rub. There are people who have repaid their student loans over and over again, but because our interest rates are way too high for student debt they can't ever get it paid off. So, instead of forgiving student debt refinance at a lower interest rate, do it retroactive so people aren't being taken advantage on student debt. If in face the department of education has given student debt to a fly-by-night for-profit college took advantage of our veterans mainly, took advantage of minority populations, then look at how you're going to provide relief there when people didn't get a product and you actually put the good housekeeping seal of approval on it when you gave them the ability to do student loans, and let's take a look at forgiving for people who in fact are doing things that other people don't want to do.
Heidi Heitkamp: (43:34)
Teachers, and firefighters, and people who are engaged in ... There are so many ways to justify student debt forgiveness, but wiping it out across the board makes it looks like we're picking winners and losers in this society, and people intuitively think who's going to pay for that. I guess I'm going to pay for it when I write out my check in April. And so, I just think we need to be really ... It's true for everything in life. If you want to figure out where you can bring cohesion to society and to our politics sit for a while in someone else's chair. Sit for a while and see the world through their lens, and quit assuming you know what motivates them, and to me that's a critical part of reuniting the country.
John Darsie: (44:30)
And so, let's talk about reuniting the country very quickly because we're going overtime here, and we're so grateful for your time, senator. You wrote an op-ed recently with Cindy McCain that was published on cnn.com talking about the need to come together across bipartisan lines. President elect now Joe Biden has talked a lot about wanting to do this. He thinks that people will be surprised by how much compromise there will be in this new Senate, and in this new administration. Are you optimistic about a return to some level of bipartisan deal making, or are you cynical and you think polarization could get worse before it gets better?
Heidi Heitkamp: (45:08)
If you try and do this from Washington DC you will spin your tires, and you'll be further in the ditch, and I've said this over and over again. If you want to reunite this country get out into the country, because if y'all scurry into a room and have these discussions behind closed doors, and then everybody's mad at everybody, and they come out and they have their talking points, and "You don't care about poor people." "Well, you only care about rich people," blah, blah, blah, back and forth, you'll get nothing done.
Heidi Heitkamp: (45:41)
From my bio, you know that I'm a product of state government. I was a Democrat in a very Republican state even when I held state office, and I was able to get these things done. Sometimes they weren't always the most popular with my Republican colleagues, but we got stuff done. I always tell this story. I say in every small town in America, and probably big towns, I don't know those as well, there's a coffee table, and it's usually filled up with people from the community, mainly old guys. And I said "There's people sitting around that table, they're Democrats, and they're Republicans, and our diversity here in North Dakota they're Lutherans and Catholics, they're Green Bay fans and Viking fans," and I said, "And they'll argue the issues of the day," but that group of people will figure out how to get the Christmas lights up in the town square.
Heidi Heitkamp: (46:29)
They'll figure out how to put a roof on the church together, and it's that local we have to get it done attitude that we need to reignite, and if we don't reignite it at the local level I have no hope that it's going to happen at the national level.
John Darsie: (46:45)
Hopefully, they hear your voice in this administration and we can fix some of these problems before they spiral too far out of control. Senator Heitkamp, we're very grateful again for your time. Anthony, do you have a final word for the senator before we let her go.
Anthony Scaramucci: (46:59)
Next time we're on Bill Maher don't outshine me like that, senator, okay?
Heidi Heitkamp: (47:04)
I don't know that that happened. I don't know that that happened.
Anthony Scaramucci: (47:07)
You were like a blinding sun of wisdom and humor at a time when I needed you sedated. I just want you to know that. Merry Christmas.
Heidi Heitkamp: (47:17)
It was fun.
Anthony Scaramucci: (47:18)
It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it actually, and thank you so much for doing this with us.
Heidi Heitkamp: (47:23)
And the thing is, Anthony, if you from Long Island, traditionally a Republican, coming from the finance world, I come from rural America, if you and I can sit down and have a conversation and try and understand there's hope in the world, and so thank you for inviting me. It was fun to do, and I really, really enjoyed getting to know you.
Anthony Scaramucci: (47:45)
We appreciate you being on. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, to you and your family, and hopefully we'll see you in the New Year once this pandemic ebbs.
John Darsie: (47:55)
We know you're not a big city girl, but we're having a conference potentially in New York next year, and we'd love to see you there. We can show you some of the big city lights.
Anthony Scaramucci: (48:06)
She's been there more than once. You make it like she's never been there. You really lack today.
Heidi Heitkamp: (48:13)
No, it's all good. Thank you so much, John, and thank you Anthony for including me.
Anthony Scaramucci: (48:16)
Thanks, senator.