The Ricochet Podcast - NRI 2015 Ideas Summit: Jeb Bush

Episode Date: May 1, 2015

A conversation between Jeb Bush and National Review Editor Rich Lowry, recorded live from National Review Institute’s 2015 Ideas Summit at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington, D.C. Source

So I've been trying, they have a news hole to fill, so I've been trying to think of a question of sufficient gravity to really drive the news cycle over the next, say, two or three hours. So this is what I came up with. Has W ever painted you, and if you run for president and if you are elected, will you consider having him do your official portrait? The answer to the second question is, heck no. I'm going to be, I think George's early works was a little too primitive. I'd like to wait until we get to the

post-modern era of his before he starts painting me, to be honest with you. He's actually gotten a little bit better. He started with dogs, then he did landscapes, and now he actually gives paintings to people who are his friends, and they put them up because they know ultimately they're going to have quite a bit of value. Great.

Well, let's talk about what's been big news this week, which is the situation in Baltimore. Yes. And it's become a little less a debate over what specifically might have happened in the terrible death Baltimore. Yes. And it's become a little less a debate over what specifically might have happened and the terrible death of Freddie Gray, a little less about the handling of the riots, and more the bigger question of who or what is responsible for the state of Baltimore and what we can do about it.

And what is your take about that big question, who or what has failed the city of Baltimore? Well, first, I think it's important to reflect on the fact that a young man died, and that's a tragedy for this family. And this is not just a statistic. This is a person who died. Secondly, there were a lot of people who lost their livelihoods because of this. And I think we need to be respectful of private property. and I think the beginning, allowing the riots to kind of happen, was disturbing. I mean, you can't just push over that and then go to the grand societal problems. I do think that public safety is the first priority for any city or any government jurisdiction.

In this case, there are a lot of people that are going to suffer because of what happened, and hopefully order is going to be restored. Thirdly, I'd just say I think it sends the wrong signal not to have a baseball game with people in it. I think we need to recognize that life doesn't just get paralyzed when these tragedies occur. You can't allow that to happen because it actually might create more of them. And so now, I know I got that out of the way, I do think the tendency, particularly on the left, is to blame, to create a set of reasons why this happens.

And the President's view on this, I thought he started pretty well by talking about, he had one sentence in his response about the decline of families in urban core America and I think that is absolutely true. But there's much broader issues that go along with this, the pathologies that are being built of people that are stuck in poverty, where you're born poor today and you're more likely to stay poor.

And we need to deal with this. And I believe conservatives have the better approach. His approach is to say conservatives haven't offered up enough money to give me to be able to create programs to let people be successful. Well, at what point do we go past $10 trillion? I mean, a trillion in a year? At what point does it – do you have to conclude that the top-down-driven poverty programs have failed? I think we need to be engaged in this debate as conservatives and say that there's a bottom-up approach. And it starts with building capacity so people can achieve earned success and having higher expectations

and higher accountability and dramatically different kinds of schools and the kinds of things that will yield a chance for families to be able to survive in a really difficult time. Here's the big challenge, I think, for people born in poverty today. If you're born poor today, by the time you reach 18, it's possible you'll never have a job in your entire life. I mean, that's the world we're moving towards, of dramatic disruptive technologies putting the first rung on the ladder higher and higher and higher. So if we don't get this right, we're going to have an America that is radically different than what created its greatness. And the ability for people to rise up, I think,

will be challenged in ways we can't even imagine. So, you know, having this conversation in the broader sense, I think, is probably not appropriate completely today. But I hope conservatives don't feel compelled to pull back. We don't need to be defensive. It's the failed progressive policies, I think, that we need to address, and we need to offer compelling alternatives to it. So let me circle back on the rioting specifically.

I know you're not going to run for any municipal office, but Mayor Giuliani has said the right approach in that situation, the first person that throws a rock is arrested, and that's it. Do you agree with that? I completely agree that the broken window policy has been proven successful. You don't have to take it to the extreme of having police brutality, but there needs to be a certainty of punishment to create order and security. Who are the people that get hurt by this? It's the shop owner. It's the person who now may lose their job in a business that can't reopen.

It's the nursing home. It's the church. I mean, these are people, this is the community that, you know, creates the vibrancy to allow for these communities to be successful are always hurt the most in these kinds of events. So I think the mayor's record when he was mayor of New York, creating this strategy with the police department was the right one. So family breakdown, as you mentioned, the president mentioned absent fathers. It's obviously a huge part of the puzzle there. Is there any policy or anything public officials can do to help turn back what has been a rising tide of family breakdown across the decades now? Absolutely, there is.

I mean, it's not necessarily at the core. My views on this were shaped a lot by Charles Murray's book, except I was reading the book and I was waiting for the last chapter with the really cool solutions. Didn't quite get there. I think we need to have solutions. I don't think we can just accept defeat here. But I think there's things that we can do as it relates to our whole wealth transfer payment system, the welfare system, where the highest marginal tax rate for people, the equivalent of a tax, would be someone trying to get out of poverty.

And the minute they start earning enough income, they actually could, in some states, lose more benefits than they gain in net income. I mean, we have to change this and reward work rather than non-work. And I think we have to have a system where we – and this is something that many of your colleagues at National Review are focused on, the so-called reformicons, which I think this is a place where these approaches make sense. How do you create

a system of support that doesn't create dependency? That's got to be where the federal government plays a role. And then in public life, I think it's pretty clear that the way to break out of poverty is there's a higher probability of breaking out of poverty if you have two parents in the home that are focused on loving their children with

their heart and soul, and if that child gets a better education than the great majority of kids in the urban core settings of our country get. If you do those two things, you're likely to break out of poverty. So let's encourage those two things, you're likely to break out of poverty. So let's encourage those two things to happen more often. I don't want to oversimplify this, but stronger family life and a radically different education system. The Baltimore education system,

best I can recall, is not a role model that anybody goes to travel to to see how they're educating low-income kids. If you want to see that, go to Florida. to see how they're educating low-income kids. If you want to see that, go to Florida. Go to Miami-Dade County, where the greatest gains amongst kids in poverty have occurred because we have high expectations, high standards, robust accountability. We ended social promotion in third grade. This insidious policy that

says you're functionally illiterate as a third grader, but it's fine. Go to fourth grade. No big deal. Basically creating learning gaps from there on out that make it harder and harder to be successful. School choice, both public and private. I mean, ultimately, this is, I mean, a girl can dream here, so here goes. Ultimately, we need to get to a system where time is the variable and learning is the constant. What does that mean? I know everyone else is thinking.

I had the courage to ask it. Darn, I thought that was pretty... I've been using this line for so long and everybody had that same look. Now I realize it's because it makes no sense. What it means is instead of having your little kid's butt sitting in a seat for 180 days, and then you go to the next grade level because you've been going to school more or less for 180 days, if you don't master the material, you don't go on. And if you do master the material, you're pushed forward.

You're not held back if you have the capability of learning, and you're not pushed along if you haven't mastered it. In other words, a customized learning experience for every child in America. That's what we need to be doing. And look, to suggest that we use an agriculture calendar and an industrial model where the collective bargaining interests of the adults benefit both sides of the effort, and there's no accountability, no rewards for improving student learning, all that stuff. We just keep doing it the way we've been doing, and we're going to expect a different result. It's not going to work. And so the model that I'm suggesting is possible because of the ability to bring high-quality, rich digital content into the classroom.

Every aspect of our life has been customized. Why not the most important thing that we do, which is to assure that children have the capacity to achieve earned success? So let me hit something else that's at the top of the news. Before I do, I should mention to participants of the summit, there should be cards on your table, and if you have questions for Governor Bush, write them on the cards, and someone will pick them up and deliver them here in a very 20th century delivery mechanism.

I was just curious, do you get now the time? Yeah, I get it. I'll think about it a little bit more tonight and overnight and see if I fully grasp it. That was deeply worrying. So the Senate's engaged in this debate over Iran policy, and the consensus vehicle is this Corker bill. Yeah.

Now, there's criticism of it from the right, which says it's much too weak because what it's effectively done is say you will need 67 votes to disapprove of any Iran deal, whereas traditionally when the Senate is giving assent to a treaty, you need 67 to approve. So this has reversed the entire process, and it should be toughened up with amendments if we're going to pass it. What's your take? I do think that the amendment process is helpful so that Americans are educated about the disastrous nature of the treaty itself. I think the broader question is this is not in the national security interests of our country for all sorts of reasons. So this is democracy at work. The option, I think, is no congressional oversight at all, no congressional engagement at all,

which would be worse than having some engagement. I think Republicans need to be on record opposing whatever happens if there is to be an agreement and doing it in a principled way. It sets the stage for what the next president can do as it relates to changing whatever the outcome is. So the reason why this is a bad deal is, you know, Iran does have, hasn't recognized Israel and its right to be a Jewish state. Iran has destabilized the region that we're now engaged in. Iran has missile capability to take their weaponry far into the region. Iran is building a defense weapons capability that is apparently as good as what we have, the Russians' top-notch technology.

And we're going to give up the leverage that we have if they have that defense system and the other leverage of sanctions. And so the net result of this is you're likely to have proliferation in the region. You're likely to have an emboldened Iran, not a humble Iran. And you're likely to have our strongest ally in the region be threatened. So I think this is a horrific deal. I can't conjecture on what happens is, but it looks as though as the negotiations unfold, we're pulling back, making more and more concessions. Iran's not making any. And maybe they overstepped their bounds. Perhaps there's not going to be an

agreement at all because they don't really need one. And if you think about it, they can get almost everything they want without it. So would you recommend attempting to amend the bill to make it a requirement that Iran recognize Israel? I understand the sentiment. I don't know if that kills the bill and you have no legislative oversight, no congressional work. There's some benefits to that because it would have to be done by executive order, but the United Nations would overturn the sanctions and the leverage that we have would go away. This is not an easy, easy question. I think the better way of looking at this

is we shouldn't be negotiating at all. We shouldn't have started unless we were sincere about maintaining the objectives that were when the President started, and today he's abandoned those. So if you're President of the United States and a deal, something like we think it's going to be, is in place, and it's gotten some loose form of congressional imprimatur because there hasn't been those 67 votes to disapprove it, would you pull out of that deal? If it's in the security interest of the United States, absolutely. It could be another hypothetical might be that this is done by executive order.

And as we know, the president is proud of using authority he does and sometimes doesn't have, and all of that can be undone by the next president as well. Let's talk about something else in the news. It seems as though every few weeks there's some horrific story from the broader Middle East or North Africa having to do with a massacre of Christians or the ethnic cleansing of Christians. Is the U.S. government doing enough in this area? And if not, what can be done?

I think it's shameful that the United States is not speaking loudly and acting forcefully on behalf of Christians and Jews. But in the case of the Middle East, principally Christians, I think we have a duty. We're the only country that has the resources to be able to provide support. I have a personal interest in this, a broad interest of being a Christian, and I think we all as Christians need to be acting on our conscience as it relates to this to provide support. But my daughter-in-law is of Iraqi origin. She's a Canadian-born. She lives in Miami. And her parents were Iraqis, and they moved to Toronto.

And I was watching the efforts of ISIS to try to take out the entire Christian community of one of the oldest Christian communities in Iraq. It's deeply disturbing because of this personal interest as well as my faith. And so I've helped raise money. But the United States government should be clear that we need to be supportive. I've always thought that we had the capability of providing support for the 200 Christian girls that were kidnapped by Boko Haram in northern Nigeria. I don't know why we wouldn't be aggressive and forceful in cooperation with these countries to act on our conscience on behalf of people that their only fault has been that they had a deep abiding faith in Christ. I don't know. YouTube, if you see these things, it's just so horrific. If it doesn't move your heart, then not much will.

Where Coptic Christians are being beheaded and you can see them mouthing the Lord's Prayer as it's taking place. But for us, who? Who's going to stand on behalf of these folks across the board? And I would add the same applies to we need to stand tall against anti-Semitism in Europe and other places as well. If we allow these things to linger, they just grow and grow and grow. This is what happens when we disengage. This is what happens when we have a regime that can't – excuse me, a government – excuse me. I didn't mean that on purpose, I swear.

Now you're speaking our language, Governor. Yeah, well. How do you say this? I think we just fed the news cycle right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking of the regimes there. A country that cannot even say what the threat is, Islamic terrorism. The girl with the really cool glasses in the State Department, the spokesman, spokesperson. She can't say it.

I think the press, when they go talk to her, they torture her with asking her these questions, and she refuses to actually say what it is. And no one in the Obama administration, for some reason, can say what it is, and as a result, we don't organize against what it is. So let's run through some more. Rewind that regime thing, please. Let's run through some other policy questions and see if we can get you in more trouble. So Marco Rubio has a tax reform plan out there,

and a central feature of it is a big increase in the child tax care credit, which has been very controversial within the right. Do you have any view on that? Do you look at that favorably, unfavorably, good idea, bad idea? I have a favorable view, and I think it's necessary to deal with the fact that the last tax reform that we had, big tax reform, was 1986. And since that time, the tax code has been modified 15,000 times. I mean, now we've created, we went to simplicity,

which helped create economic growth, to now we have the most complex code in the world, a code that says, that's so complex, that $2 trillion of U.S. cash, U.S. corporate cash is overseas because of our worldwide income, and bringing it back creates the most punitive activity. So jobs are created overseas.

Smaller foreign businesses are buying U.S. businesses to relocate them overseas. The next generation of job creators can't set up the job because of two principal three reasons, or overregulation, this complex tax code, and Obamacare. Those are the three things that suppress jobs. And so I think the focus ought to be not on targeted elements of the code, but a broader conversation about how we can eliminate as many of these tax expenditures as possible and lower the rates down as possible. That creates economic growth.

And if you want to create a rising middle class where disposable income is growing, where take-home pay is growing, you've got to fix the things that are the burdens on people's aspirations, like our health care insurance system and certainly our regulatory system, but simplifying the code is part of that. So I don't know where that puts me, but if I go beyond the consideration of running to being an actual candidate, this will be front and center a really important part of my advocacy. So if you become a candidate,

in the past you've been very critical of Grover Norquist's tax pledge. Is there any circumstance in which you would take that pledge? No, but I cut taxes every year, $19 billion. Grover Norquist's tax pledge. Is there any circumstance in which you would take that pledge? No. But I cut taxes every year. $19 billion. No one comes close to the record of tax cuts. By the way, we cut $19 billion in eight years. Every year we cut, we had

all sorts of tax cuts. I don't have to be told how important that is. I did it. And I think that's the better approach. Cutting taxes in a way that creates economic prosperity ends up creating more revenue, enough revenue for government at least, to allow it to function and puts more money in people's pockets. That's the right approach. So I'm not going to change my views on that. And my record is clear. In fact, my record is as good or better than any. In fact, let me put it this way.

If you've served in the United States Senate over the last eight years or six years, there's no tax cut that's taken place. This president has raised taxes a trillion dollars to fund Obamacare, and then just because he could, he created another $600 billion tax cut. So anybody associated with Washington, D.C. can talk about all this stuff, but places where the taxes have been cut are in places like Florida where they were led by a conservative governor that thought this was important. The net result, just to put it in the broader perspective, was during my eight years,

1.4, 1.3 million net new jobs were created. In those five of those eight years, 1.4, 1.3 million net new jobs were created. In those five of those eight years, more than any state. In the eight years, more than Texas. If Perry comes, tell him that. He'll have to admit it. Or you can tell my brother, either way. Just to drill down on a little bit. So it's a principled opposition to pledges of that sort. Yeah. So will you promise not to raise taxes? I think we need to cut taxes and reform our code to create economic prosperity. We're talking on the edges of what ails us as a country. What ails us as a country right now, apart from the pessimism that really is kind of freezing in place, the animal spirits that typically allow Americans to solve problems.

There's a lack of leadership in Washington, for sure. But it's also this tepid economic growth. We're growing at 2%, and everybody accepts it. It's this new term. I never read about it in National Review, just for the record. But it's called the new normal. The new normal makes me nauseous, because the new normal will redefine America in a really bad way.

Two percent growth compounded out. We'll be overwhelmed by our entitlement problems. We'll be overwhelmed by the demands on government. We'll be overwhelmed with crumbling infrastructure and the lack of commitment to research and development. Four percent growth is what we should be achieving. And so tax reform and regulatory reform, embracing our energy revolution in our midst, this will get you going, reforming our broken immigration system, and fixing the fiscal structural deficits that we have related to our entitlement system

is how you get to 4% growth. That should be the focus. So Scott Walker has kicked up a bit of a fuss over the last several weeks. You're trying to get me in trouble. Oh yeah, of course. No, of course I am. He said that when it comes to legal immigration, the first thing we should think about is what effect immigration has on American workers and their wages. Do you agree or disagree? I don't think it's a zero-sum game. I think if we start thinking it's a zero-sum game, we're going to play the game that Barack Obama plays oh so well.

It's the wrong approach. We have three to five million jobs unfilled that require skills in America today. Think of had we fixed our immigration system in the way that I would propose it, how much extra job growth and investment would have happened in our country that would have provided opportunities for higher wages for people struggling near or at the bottom or people that are squeezed in the middle. This is not a zero-sum game. If you want to grow at 4% per year instead of 2% per year, you need younger, more dynamic people inside of our economy that are productive to get to 4% growth.

You can't do it by a declining population, and you can't do it with pathetic productivity growth. You have to have both. So immigration is not the end-all and be-all, but an immigration system that fixes the border, the control that creates a more secure America for all sorts of good reasons, and then expands the number of economic immigrants and narrows the number of immigrants coming for family purposes. I mean, Richard, you follow this, you know this. A lot of people don't, though. We have the broadest definition of family petitioning in the world. Every country that I'm aware of, there may be one or two that are like ours. I don't think there are. Most countries have the definition of family as spouse and

minor children. We have spouse minor children, which is more than appropriate. Then we have adult siblings and adult parents. It has created chain migration. This was started in the 60s, and we've allowed it to continue because we haven't fixed this broken immigration system. And the net result is then we put quotas on countries to deal with this because there could be some countries based on chain migration that half the country would come if they were allowed to. So the quota was based on the reality this wasn't working the way it should.

Better to narrow that to spouse and minor children and then expand based on need what our economy would create, a guest worker program, dealing with the huge shortages in information technology and all sorts of other areas. That's how you're going to grow your economy is bring young aspirational people in that embrace our values and move forward because here's the deal. And again again, I love you, and I love National Review. This is going to be good with this windup. I just think you're wrong on immigration, to be honest with you, and you think I'm wrong. So I respect you for it, but I just honestly believe that if we fix the legal part that is not working,

we could grow our economy far faster, and we'd be younger and more dynamic. The world that some argue for is a world of declining population. It's the world of Japan. It's the world of Europe in decline. I reject that. America doesn't do that well. We're at our best when we're young, aspirational, and dynamic. So maybe I'm stubborn.

I'm willing to listen to other views on this, and I hope we'll have a dialogue about this. But I think I'm right about this. And if we're going to grow economically, then we better figure out how to get this fixed pretty quick. So let me push back a little bit. I wanted to get the thing going a little bit. It was getting kind of boring. So I think the argument that Walker would make, or at least Senator Jeff Sessions would make, it's not an argument that it's necessarily a zero-sum game. It's a basic economic argument having to do with supply and demand.

And if you increase the supply of low-skilled labor, of course low-skilled wages are going to go down. So who's suggesting that? That's the whole – that's the false argument. The comprehensive immigration reform would have increased all this. Are you talking about the people that are here already that no one has a plan to take out? No, no, no. It would have increased legal immigration. And although they talk the game of high skills, it's always increasing low skills. But you want to decrease low skills.

Look, I'm not a United States senator, thank God, just for the record here. I live in Miami. I'm outside of Washington. I've written a book about this. What I was describing was my idea. My idea is to narrow the number of people coming for family petitioning and expanding the number of economic immigrants. You're not increasing the number of people coming for family petitioning and expanding the number of economic immigrants. You're not increasing the number overall.

And so, look, we have huge shortages in all sorts of fields. And if we, I guess what I'm saying, to simplify this is, Canada stole our immigration plan and made it better. We should re-steal the Canadian plan and make it American. There are more economic immigrants in Canada coming in annually than we have, and we're 10 times bigger. Which system is going to be the one that works? The one that is focused on economic growth or the one that's focused on family petitioning?

So one last cut at this. I'll describe a position on immigration that I think is reasonable, and you tell me what's wrong. Okay. Yeah, that's good. We secure the border

first. We secure at the point of employment through an e-verify system. Right. You have an exit entry system, visa system that really works.

Yep. You pass this. It passes all the, gets through all the legal challenges it's going to have from the ACLU and others. You actually get it in place. And when it works, then you do some form of amnesty for many illegal immigrants who aren't going anywhere. Because now you know that's not going to be a magnet for new illegal immigrants. And you do the amnesty in exchange for changes in the legal immigration system

where I would reduce total numbers but certainly emphasize higher skills. Hey, we're getting there. Okay. No, I don't, the details of how you, at what point do you say the border is secure,

I worry about, you know, total security, which means that we probably had to lose some of our freedom as a country. That bothers me a bit. I kind of like my freedom. I'm the kind of guy that doesn't like municipalities like some in Florida that put cameras on stoplights just to get another 85 bucks from you. So, I mean, I think we need to be focused on liberty and freedom.

But, yeah, that's the idea. Another element of this should be, I think, to make it easier to come legally. As part of eliminating the magnet, there should be an option for people to come legally. It should be easier than coming illegally. That should be one of the guiding principles of any system, which means we need to have much better enforcement. And we've got to solve this. Here's the political side of this that I'm not sure everybody gets. By doing nothing, you have two things that happen, at least under the age of Obama. You have a president that uses this like

he's a Stradivarius violin. He's playing for some symphony. He uses this as a wedge issue, and we always lose. We always lose on the political argument about tone and about all this. And he always wins, or the Democrats always win, if you think about having family being the driver of legal immigration rather than an economic driver. So delaying this is what he wants.

He doesn't want immigration reform. He and Jeff Sessions, actually, this would shock both of them. They probably agree with this. And I think what we need to do is to say, let's fix this, grow the economy, lift people's spirits, again, not exclusively because of immigration are we going to grow. There's a lot of other big challenges we face. But we're going to turn people into Republicans if we're much more aspirational in our message. And our tone, I think, has to be more inclusive as well.

So let's try another sticky one. There is a movement among some parents to opt out of Common Core testing. If a parent came to you and said, Governor, I'm considering doing this, what would you tell him or her? Say, well, if it's going to make it harder for you to graduate, it's going to make it harder for you to get into college,

I think you need to rethink it. My personal belief is Common Core, this is interesting, we've had tests long before Common Core. The idea that this is Common Core, that you have assessments, is really not true. And people have been opting out. Florida had the most meaningful, and still does, most meaningful accountability system in the country. We also had the greatest learning gains in the country.

They go together, by the way. It's a comprehensive suite of reforms that creates rising student achievement. I'll just recite a few of the statistics. We were on the NAEP test, the Nation's Report Card test. You can't teach to that test. It's administered for fourth grade and eighth grade. We were 29th out of 31 in 1997 on the fourth grade reading test. Ten years later, we were sixth out of 50.

Florida Hispanic kids are two grade levels ahead of their counterparts. Florida Hispanic kids do better than or equal to 33 states on this test. Low-income kids in Florida are in the top five. African-American kids are in the top five in these tests. The reason is that we have meaningful assessments, and we have robust accountability, and we have robust accountability, and we have school choice that puts pressure on a system that otherwise wouldn't move. So eliminating elements of the accountability system would get a bad result.

I mean, California is a great example of this. They have good standards. They're replacing them with common core standards, but they're on par. They're basically more or less the same. They have no accountability or little accountability to speak of, and they have languishing results. So who's fooling who? When a third of our kids are 40% at best or college or career ready, that's where we are. How do you know unless you measure?

How do you know unless you test? The idea that you're opting out of a test because it's stressful, you know, think about this. I mean, what's the world like? This is what my college career was based on doing, Governor. Opting out? Yeah. Opting out of tests that were stressful. Wow, that's really going to... I'm thinking how we're going to compete in this

extraordinarily competitive global economy when we have large numbers of parents telling their kids it doesn't matter. And in Korea, they're sending their kids to tutorials from 6 o'clock till 10 o'clock at night to be able to speak Korean and English by fifth grade. And they're doing math

that is three or four grade levels ahead of us. Who's going to be the competitor that wins? I mean, this works if you're in an affluent family, and you nurture your child, and you help them along the way. Fine, okay, that probably works for you. But what about the single mom struggling to be able to provide for their kid, where kids generally, because they start in poverty or treated well, they can't learn. You know, the subtle, what my

brother called the soft bigotry of low expectation, that exists in America today. You can't deny it. And keeping these, you know, lowering expectations, eliminating accountability is going to doom a whole generation of people. And I, for one, won't take it. So, this is a controversy that's sprung up over the last couple of weeks. Is a governor or former governor ready to be President of the United States in the area of foreign affairs? Wow. I mean, let me think. Ronald Reagan? I don't know what else I have to say. You can be prepared from day one from being a governor, and governors actually have to make decisions. They have to say no to people. They have to speak in English. It's a novel language. Once you leave Washington, you might actually hear it a little bit. They can't hide behind the collective skirt and say,

well, you know, I passed an amendment about this, and the CBO did blah, blah, blah. They actually have to lead. They have to make decisions. They have to persuade. They have to convince. They actually have to compromise from time to time. And those skills apply directly to the presidency. And there's enough examples of governors who have been extraordinary leaders in foreign policy, starting with Ronald Reagan.

Is Islam a religion of peace? but it's been hijacked by people who have an ideology that wants to destroy Western civilization, and they're barbarians. So that part, which is the part that we need to confront head-on, is clearly not a religion of peace. And I think you're not offending the sensibilities of people that are peaceful in the adherence of their faith when you say what I just said. And, for example, here's one of the, you know, this may, you know, you think about all of the foibles of the Obama foreign policy over the last six years, one that may not be on

the top five list, but it should be, is Egypt. You know, we've gotten it wrong on Egypt. This was Secretary Clinton's, I think she was primarily responsible for this. We dumped Mubarak. The Muslim Brotherhood came in. We embraced them. al-Sisi now is in power, and we've just begun to get back into developing a relationship. Here's a guy who should be the strongest ally we have because he, for the first time, at least that I've seen, and I'm sure there's other Arab leaders, but he for the first time has said it's our responsibility to confront radical Islam. And that kind of leadership is what we need to support. There should be

no uncertainty about this. We should be a strong supporter of leaders like this, because the option is the dismemberment of the modern states of the Middle East, and nothing good is going to happen when that happens. So we have some questions on cards, and this must be one that slipped through from a journalist, because it says, Dear Governor Bush, we will never forget your regime gaffe. Here's another one. What is it about your mother that makes men associated with her about 10,000 times more likely than anyone else to hold high office?

Well, I don't know. I'm actually kind of struggling with this these days because I know there are some people out there, particularly in the press, that would love to make this, if I go beyond the consideration of this, to make it where I'm giving the impression somehow that I want to break the tie between the Bush family and the Adams family. I guess you could say the same thing about Abigail, right? Can't answer that question. It's just different. It's unusual. I have enough

self-awareness to know that it's kind of strange. But on the other hand, I think if I go beyond the consideration, I'll count on the good wisdom and directness of my mom to help me communicate directly with people. She's pretty good at that, internally in the family for sure, and also externally from time to time. So I tell people, Rich, I have this, whenever I start, which I've done today, I've been tooting my own horn about my record as governor. Since no one else is going to toot it, I got to be the person that does it. But every time I start, I literally feel this presence behind my back, and it's the looming, you don't see it back there, right? It's the looming presence of my mother saying, don't brag.

It's not about you. I'm almost feeling like she's about ready to do what that woman did in Baltimore when she tried to get this. I thought it wasn't a W. I thought W got that treatment. Oh, yeah. We all did. But I think my mom and the woman who was bringing her child back home have a lot in common, which I admired her a lot for doing what she did. That was pretty, a nice visual symbol of what needs to be restored.

Who is, among current U.S. Supreme Court justices, who is your model justice? Wow. I love, actually, when I was governor, I'm not a lawyer, but I – you know, you play – you've got to play one sometimes when you're governor because you're always getting sued or there's always a legal consequence to everything. And so I learned to appreciate the law a little bit more, and I made a lot of appointments to the Florida Supreme Court appellate courts, which were really important. So I learned a little bit about this, and I started reading rulings.

People, friends of mine that were lawyers would send me rulings so that I could, you know, find interesting things. And Scalia is by far and away the most interesting opinion writer. And it probably informs his views in the most eloquent way, so he would be on my list. I actually admire and like the opposite of that would be Clarence Thomas,

who is quiet and speaks with great clarity when he opines. And there's a consistency there I admire a lot, and I generally share his views. Peter Schweitzer, the author of the book Clinton Cash, says he's coming after you next. Are you worried? No, I hope he gives me a heads up, though. The controversy a couple weeks ago in Indiana

over the Religious Freedom Act, you seemed to suggest, if the press reports are accurate, that that law needed to be fixed. What was wrong with it? No, I didn't say that. I supported Pence. I think he needed to create clarity that this was not an attempt to discriminate against people.

It was an effort to provide some space for people to act on their religious conscience. And that's where we need to get. We need to get to a place where government's not going to discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation. And at the same time, make sure that there is ample space for people not just to have a religious view or just to be religious, but to actually act on their religious view. That conscience is what we need to protect. And I fear that we're not finding that balance right now.

I just, you listen to the Solicitor General and the, you know, this is back to the law here. Again, I'm not a lawyer. But I read some of the transcript, and the Solicitor General, in defense of the government's position, when, I guess it was Scalia, or someone asked about this question of, well, does that mean that religious institutions, the church or other religious institutions are discriminating if they don't want to participate? And he said, that's not what's in front of you today.

Now, maybe I'm misinterpreting that remark, but my interpretation of that was, well, that might be in front of you tomorrow. And that's where I think we need to focus. I think a country as open and big and tolerant as this country ought to be able to find common ground on both of those fronts. We just have time for a couple more. Here's another one from the audience. How do we go about improving the assimilation of immigrants? And I would add on to that, would you have any concern whatsoever if Puerto Rico were actually to become a state, as I think you're favorably inclined to, any concern about assimilating such a poor country?

Sure. First of all, they're American citizens, so that would be a separate. This is not a sub of the first question. It's a separate question. Okay. If you're going to get all technical with me, I've got two questions for you. So, you know, Puerto Ricans can buy a $79 one-way ticket to Orlando or any place, and they can participate fully as American citizens. When they're there, they don't. I think it's a moral question. It's been the position of the Republican Party since the 1970s,

and it's been a view that Puerto Rico have the right of self-determination to decide if they want to have want to be a state or not. And if they do want to be a state, just as Ronald Reagan suggested and George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and every Republican candidate since the 1970s,

I support that idea. There's one Puerto Rican guy in the room. I just think it's a moral question. I don't think you can, you know, citizens should have the rights and responsibilities of full citizenship. That's just a belief I have, a core value I have. The other issue is one of huge importance because our immigration works when people embrace a set of shared values. It doesn't work when we divide ourselves up in disparate parts,

where we move towards the European model of multiculturalism. It's a disaster when it works that way. And so one of the answers to this is, first of all, maybe we should have a conversation about what our shared values are. One of them is learning English, for sure. Others is having, I think, being tolerant, having a respect of the Bill of Rights, understanding the uniqueness of our country where our freedoms are created to protect us from an overreaching government. These are all part of what have been a set of shared values,

and today I think the set of shared values may be called into question. So part of any significant immigration reform, I think, would be make it create a requirement that's deeper in its understanding of the American experience. Let me put it in perspective. To become a citizen, you have to take a test. There are 100 questions that you're given. You'll get 10 of those. You'll get asked 10 of them.

If you pass, I think if you get six of them right, you're in. American, native-born Americans actually fail at a higher rate than immigrants because immigrants want to become a citizen, so they memorize the questions. I think we need to go deeper than that. I think we need to have a deeper understanding of what it is to be an American. If we don't do that, we have problems, and I think that's a key element of success. So how do you do that? Well, you make the test tougher.

It was made tougher during my brother's administration. I think it'd be made tougher again. And I think we need to get back to civics education in our country, in the K-12 system. Look, I don't know, anybody do their kids' homework?

You read the social studies books that your children and grandchildren read? It's not Common Core, by the way. It has nothing to do with Common Core. This crap hole has been going on for a long while. And if you look at the lack of rigor, the lack of... I mean, George Washington gets the same emphasis as other noble Americans,

but George Washington is the greatest president we had. He created this country. We would have been dramatically different had Washington not been, or our mutual friend Abraham Lincoln. I mean, we should have, there should be a deep understanding of the courage and conviction and integrity of these great men, and they should be held up high as examples of what it is to be an American in this extraordinary country. So embracing that and making sure that all of us understand its power, I think, has to be part of any reform on immigration.

And frankly, a more hopeful, optimistic America, there's no reason why we should be moping around right now. I don't know. I don't think I'm naive to think this. We're on the verge of the greatest time to be alive. This is not a time of we've had greater challenges in our country's history. This is a time of abundance. And we fix a few big things,

part of which requires us to go back into our history and appreciate its greatness. I'd rather be 21 than 62, with nothing to my name. I'd rather, as long as I could go back with my beloved Columba, nothing to my name. I'd rather, as long as I could go back with my beloved Columbo, nothing to my name. Give me a credit card, or maybe two,

so I could play off one after the other on a monthly basis. This is the coolest time to be alive. And we need to believe that and then act on it. A couple of real quick ones. Is it called the Paleo diet? Yeah. How's that working out? You know, I'm tired of talking about it because someone's going to catch me cheating and then, oh, it'll be like a big deal and blah, blah. But it's worked. I mean, look at me. I'm

skinnier. Isn't that what diets are for? But it's a simple diet. They call it a diet because you're not eating processed food. That's about the principle of it. It's meat and fish and vegetables and fruit and nuts. Lots of nuts. A whole lot of nuts. So not that you have a lot of time for this now, but when you have more time, what kind of books do you like to read for fun? What sort of books have had a big impact on you? I like the Charles Murray books, to be honest with you, which means I'm a total nerd, I guess. Let's see, what book am I reading right now? Gosh, I can never forget.

I never remember the name of this author, but he wrote the book about the Columbian Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair. I love that guy. I'm reading all of his books right now. That's the. I love that guy. I'm reading all of his books right now. That's the one I'm reading. Fantastic book, Lusitania. The Trail of Lusitania?

No, I'm reading. Actually, I'm reading about Marconi. The next one is Lusitania. I was very confident, though, to tell you what book you're reading. Well, that's his most recent book. I recommend those books because they're nonfiction, but they're written in a fiction kind of way. Governor, thanks so much.

I should have said the National Review. Yes. You blew it. Thanks.