MIYU KAMIKURA: Good afternoon. Good afternoon and
welcome to the John F. Kennedy, Jr., Forum. My name is Miyu Kamikura. I am a sophomore studying
Government at the College, and I'm a member of the
JFK Jr. Reform Committee here at the Institute
of Politics. Before we begin, please
note the exit doors, which are located on both the
Parkside and the JFK street side of the Forum. In the event of an emergency,
walk to the exit closest to you and congregate in the JFK Park. Please also take a moment now
to silence your cell phones. Please take your
seats now and join me in welcoming the Treasurer
of the Institute of Politics Student Advisory Committee,
Olivia Ferdinand. [APPLAUSE] OLIVIA FERDINAND: Hi, everyone. My name is Olivia Ferdinand
and I'm the Student Treasurer of the Institute of Politics. On behalf of Harvard Kennedy
School, Dean Doug Elmendorf, and IOP Director
Mark [INAUDIBLE] it is my great honor today to
introduce Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and Senator Ed Markey. From 2013 to 2017,
Ambassador Kennedy served as the United
States Ambassador to Japan. She is also an
attorney and the editor of nine books on constitutional
law, American history, politics, and poetry. A graduate of Harvard University
and Columbia Law School, we at the IOP are very grateful
for ambassador Kennedy's continued support and
service as the Honorary Chair of the Senior
Advisory Committee. Senator Ed Markey has
had a long history of serving Massachusetts. He also has a special
connection to the IOP. In 2004 Dr. Susan
Blumenthal, his wife, was an IOP Resident Fellow. After attending Boston College
and Boston College Law School, Senator Markey served
in the US Army Reserve. He was the US representative for
Massachusetts 7th Congressional District for 37 years and
became Dean of the Massachusetts Delegation. Elected to the Senate
in 2013, Senator Markey has shown a deep
commitment to Massachusetts and to public service. Now, please join me in welcoming
Ambassador Kennedy and Senator Markey. [APPLAUSE] CAROLINE KENNEDY:
Good afternoon. It is a great honor
for the Kennedy School and for the Institute
of Politics and for me personally to welcome you
to your first IOP Forum. It took us so long
to get this together but our timing is incredible. What an amazing week to
have Senator Markey here. The Institute of politics
was established as a memorial to my father to bring
practitioners and students together to inspire
careers in public service. And I can't think of
anyone who would be better to talk about that today. Your friend, my uncle Teddy,
was devoted to the IOP and he gave as much here
as he gave to the Senate, so he would be unbelievably
thrilled that you're here. And I wanted to also
just describe to you that we have here students from
Institutes of Politics type places from all over the
country that are here gathered for this weekend. So this is their
kickoff event and it couldn't come at a
better time because you may have been in Congress
for almost as long as I can remember. But I would say working
hard on the issues that for the last two weeks
have been front page news every single day. So congratulations and thank
you on behalf of all of us for your leadership on
climate, on technology, on nuclear disarmament,
and so many other things. And first of all, we
want to congratulate you on the Green New Deal. ED MARKEY: Thank you. CAROLINE KENNEDY: I think that-- so since you just
introduced it yesterday, maybe you can just tell all of
us a little bit about why now? What's going to be
different this time? And if you worry about anything? ED MARKEY: Well,
I am in politics so only the paranoid survive. So you always should be worried. OK. That's lesson number one. You never assume that it's
going to go the way that you had planned it to go. So you have to always
be anticipating things could be changing. But I will say, just
to begin, what an honor it is for me to be here with
you after your great service as our Ambassador to Japan. How proud we all were having
you represent our country. And I know how proud Japan was
to have you as our Ambassador and what impact you made as
a woman ambassador to Japan. And by all accounts,
your ambassadorship had a profound
effect upon how they began to look at
women in that country. So we thank you for all of
your service and for everything that your family has
done for our country. And this Kennedy School
is like a breeder reactor of political
activism, [INAUDIBLE] into the political system. And we thank you Dean
Elmendorf, Mark Gearan for everything you do all day. And thank you Olivia for
that great introduction. And yesterday, Alexandria
Ocasio Cortez and I introduced the New Green Deal. And we had put
together the resolution over the preceding
six weeks trying to find a way in which we would
define the scope of the problem and then define the scope of
what the response has to be. And then try our best to
mobilize House and Senate members to begin to work
together on this issue. And we had a phenomenal
press conference yesterday with senators and House
members with 350.org, with Sunrise with the League
of Conservation Voters, with the Sierra Club, but
with the unions as well. Who all know that it is
possible to save all of creation by engaging in
massive job creation. That there is an opportunity
here to revolutionize the way in which blue collar
workers are able to participate in our economy. We now have 350,000 wind and
solar workers, they're roofers, they're electricians. We have 50,000 coal miners,
350,000 people in wind and solar. But we're going
to go to millions. We're going to go to millions. And we have to,
because the United Nations and their scientists
last year said that the danger date is now 2030. It's even worse
than anyone thought. And it's the consensus of the
United Nations scientists. All of the agencies of the
Trump administration, all of their scientists
came together. They issued a report. They said, it's
much more dangerous. And that something has
to happen much sooner. So the science is clear. And when you come
from Massachusetts and you're in the
United States Congress and you have MIT and Harvard
within two miles of your house, you know that science is sacred. So that's my job. My job is to represent
the science every day, which is what I've done in
my career down in Washington. And so what we have to do,
then, is put together a plan to deal with the problem. So what Alexandria and I,
what Congresswoman Ocasio Cortez and I decided to do is
we would put together a 10 year plan to mobilize this country to
be able to deal with the issue and to call for a goal of
100% renewable, clean, energy. Non-polluting energy. And to challenge the
country to meet that goal. Because failure
is not an option. And the rest of the world will
not provide the leadership. Only we can provide the
leadership, the United States. They're going to look to us
and we can't be the laggard, we have to be the leader. You cannot preach
temperance from a bar stool. You cannot tell the rest of
the world what to do if you yourself are not in fact
engaging in the act which you have to put in place. So the planet is
running a fever. There are no emergency
rooms for planets. So we have to put
in place this plan. So our goal is to create a
national movement in every city and town across
this country to try to pass the laws in
the House and Senate and signed by President
Trump in 2019 and 2020. And if not, we're
going to turn this into a voting issue
in the 2020 elections all across this country. And we're going to make
this something that everyone has to deal with and be
made accountable for, because the science
is unquestionable. And we can now feel the green
generation rising up, demanding that a solution
be put in place so that we can avoid the worst,
most catastrophic consequences. CAROLINE KENNEDY: OK. Well, sign me up. And I hope everyone here
will go back to your campuses and share the Senator's plan. One of the other issues that you
have been a long time leader on is telecommunications, internet,
cyber security, net neutrality. We saw a rollback of those
regulations this week and then the companies
not investing like they said they would. What can we all do to
advance that agenda and how is that all going? ED MARKEY: Well I passed three
bills as the Telecommunications Chairman in the 1990s. In 1992, the 18 inch
satellite dish revolution. So there would be more
pressure on terrestrial cable. Number two, in 1993, I moved
over 200 megahertz of spectrum. So there would be a third,
fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh cell phone license
in every market and we moved immediately from analog to
digital and dropped from $0.50 a minute down to $0.10 a minute
and everyone had a cell phone in their pocket by 1996. And the third bill was
1996, the broadband bill, the Telecommunications
Act of 1996. So on that day, when President
Clinton signed the bill, he's a lefty so he signed it. And not one home in
America had broadband. Now you fast forward
22 years, and there's no 12-year-old in America
who doesn't believe that a 50 inch HD
interactive screen isn't a constitutional right. So we made a lot of progress. But the one thing that
they defeated at the time was they defeated my, and I
had it in the House version, but they pulled it out in
the conference committee, that there would be a
privacy bill of rights built across all technology
platforms as rule making by 1997 and 1998. But the one thing that
I was happiest about was that the open, chaotic
nature of the internet would then make it
available for any smaller company or individual to be
able to use the internet. So that's another way of
saying net neutrality, and another way of
saying net neutrality is nondiscrimination. That the big companies
can't block you from getting in in a
non-discriminatory way. That you have equal
access with your ideas. That if you are
the Parkland kids, that you have equal
access to the internet. It's not controlled
by the big companies. That if you're a young
person with an idea and you want to reach all
320 million Americans, it can't get shut down. Well that's net neutrality. So what happened with the
Trump administration was one of the first
things they did in 2017 was to take the net neutrality
rules off the books. And since I was the original
introducer of the concept, I was very angry
and under something called the Congressional
Review Act, I was actually able to
bring an Amendment out onto the Senate floor. And it passed,
which would overturn what they had done at the FCC. But the House was
controlled by Paul Ryan, they never allowed
it to have a vote. And so net neutrality
was repealed. The case was heard in the
District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals last Friday. I went to the whole
five hour case and sat on the side of the
net neutrality proponents during the entire hearing. And in the next
couple of weeks, I'm going to introduce a new
law into the Senate that will put down a marker for
where net neutrality should go, because it essentially
is what we have been all about here in our society. Over the last 20 years,
there was no Google, eBay, there was no Hulu, YouTube. You needed the
broadband revolution. And you needed
younger people to be able to get to the
capital markets to raise the money so their
idea could get unimpeded into the marketplace. So even when you
think about Lyft, or you think about Pandora, you
think about Wayfair downtown, they all needed
another guarantee that they could go
to their investors. You don't want them to have
to go to get lawyers first, you want to have them go get
money first, so that they can get into that marketplace. So I'm going to
continue to fight very hard on net neutrality. It is not unlike climate change. It's a generational issue. It's what the 21st century
should be all about. And I am not going to go
away until we restore it as the law of the
land, because that's the way the internet
should have a relationship with our whole country, and
that's the MeToo movement, it's Black Lives Matter movement,
it's the Parkland students movement, they can
change America, but there should
never be a question that it's unimpeded access
to every single person in the country. CAROLINE KENNEDY:
Since you've mentioned them a couple of
times, I just want to recognize the
Parkland students who are here who will be
receiving the New Frontier Award in a little while
at our next event. So maybe you can
just raise your hands or stand up just so that
everybody can [INAUDIBLE].. [APPLAUSE] ED MARKEY: Can I say
that David came into my-- some of them came
into my office. They are incredible. It's just like they're
genetically hard-- excuse me? me right. Yeah. Yeah. Genetically hard wired to create
pain in the political process, OK? And I think when
they're done, they're going to make NRA
stand for Not Relevant Anymore in American politics. So we thank you. CAROLINE KENNEDY: Thank you. ED MARKEY: We
thank you for that. CAROLINE KENNEDY: And is
Mayor Tubbs here too yet? Or? He's on his way. OK. Well, so I want to
make sure that we give the students enough
time to ask you questions. And one of the things
we're doing after this is to give out the New
Frontier Award, which is an award that is jointly
given out by the Kennedy Library and the
Institute of Politics for young elected officials
who see a new frontier, just as President
Kennedy did, and also people who are making a
contribution that are not elected. And so this year,
we're really honored by the presence of
the Parkland students and also by Mayor Tubbs,
who is the youngest mayor in California. But so given that
there are people who are using the political
process, who are entering politics like the mayor. And against a
backdrop or a climate of disunity and disillusionment
in politics, what would you say to people who-- why did you go into
public service? Or what would you say to people
who are thinking about it or who are thinking, well, I
did think I wanted to do that, but I don't want
to do that anymore, because it doesn't
look like any fun? ED MARKEY: Yeah, well,
my father drove a truck for the Hood Milk Company. Graduate of the
vocational program at Lawrence High School. My mother was the president
of her senior class in high school, but
in the junior year her mother died,
my grandmother died and there were five daughters. So before Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, the social safety net
was one of the girls is going to stay home. So the older sister
had to go to work, and my mother had
to be the mother. So she never got
to go to college. She never was able
to maximize her. She used to do calculus at
the kitchen table for fun, even though she never took it. Translate Latin. So we knew, my brothers and I,
that she was smarter than us, but she would also let us
know that we would never work as hard as my father,
who drove the milk truck. That's a hard job. Getting up at 4:00 AM to put
milk bottles on the doorstep. So in Malden, growing up,
I would lie on the rug and I was Irish, I was Catholic. And then all of a
sudden, on television there's an Irish Catholic
young man from Boston who is running for president. But people are saying that he
cannot win because he is Irish and Catholic and from Boston. So I took an interest in that. There seemed to be
a limitation on me. And then, remarkably,
this young man won. And he was the president. And he said to all of
us, and we were all looking at the screen
at the inauguration. You can only imagine
what that was like. And it turned out it wasn't
just Irish Catholic boys, but Irish Catholic girls and
Italian boys and Italian girls and Polish boys and Polish
girls and Black boys and Black girls
and Hispanics, it was everyone who wasn't
part of that ruling establishment from the preceding
200 years who watching that. And he said, ask not what
your country can do for you, ask what you can do
for your country. And that became a
change in our country. And it was no longer about the
past, it was about the future and what we could do
to make a difference. So for me, that was the moment. And from that moment on,
the first lawyer I ever met was the first law professor
that walked into my class. The first time I ever
went to Washington was to be sworn in as a
Congressman on my first visit. I had never been there. I'm from Malden. My father worked for
the Hood Milk Company. I had never been there. But there was a vision that
was created for public service that I accepted. And I think millions of
other people did as well. And the Kennedy School,
the Kennedy Institute, is the memorialization of that. Just will continue on forever. Right. To ensure that generation
after generation have an ability to be able
to make their contribution to our country. So that is, in fact, my story. And when I was elected,
I was able to serve with Ted Kennedy,
who was in the Senate and I was able to serve with
Ted Kennedy in the United States Senate for 30 years as
a member of the House of Representatives. And it was just such
a great honor for me to be able to partner
with him on so many of these great causes
that have animated the body politic of our
country for generations now. So thank you, Caroline. CAROLINE KENNEDY: Well, one of
the things about Teddy and you definitely keep
that spirit alive, is the joy that that
public service brings. And I think the sense
that when you're engaged in something
that important, that can really
affect people's lives. You can also bring a sense
of hope and joy and fun to this enterprise. And I am grateful to you for
keeping that alive as well. Just before we turn it
over to the students, you were part of the sort
of unbelievable legendary Massachusetts Delegation. Tip O'Neill, [INAUDIBLE],,
[INAUDIBLE] all these names that mean probably nothing
to most of the people here. But you've served with Newt
Gingrich, Tip O'Neill, now Nancy Pelosi as Speaker,
what makes a great speaker? ED MARKEY: Ah. What makes a great
speaker whatever it that is that magical
recombinant political DNA that made Tip O'Neill
and Nancy Pelosi, OK? And it's part of
how they grew up. One had a father who was like
the political boss at Cambridge here, Tip O'Neill. One of them had a father who
was the Mayor of Baltimore. And everyone should
remember she's Marin County on the outside,
she's Baltimore on the inside. Donald Trump has
learned that, OK? Do not cross Nancy Pelosi. So they each have this beautiful
combination and graciousness and humor, which
you need to have. But underneath,
it's the toughness that you also need
if you're going to be able to achieve big things. And Teddy always had that. It was always like the most
personable guy in the room. So when I got elected, I'm
like the kid Congressman, and I'm down there. And now I'm in a room with
Tip O'Neill and Ted Kennedy and all the rest of our
incredible delegation, Father [INAUDIBLE] in the room. And you have no idea. It was incredible. It's like one big Mount Rushmore
of Massachusetts politics. Then the door closes, OK? And the laughter ended. And the business of
how Massachusetts is going to get twice as much as
any other state in every bill, OK? And I would just sit there and
watch this incredible group of politicians
that'll figure out what they were going
to get out of President Carter or President
Reagan, or whoever it was or what the strategy was
going to be to bend them to our will in Massachusetts. Because we're not
an ordinary state. We may be the Bay State, but
we're really the brain state, you know what I mean? That's why you're all here. And so that's kind of reflected
in this only 2% of America's population, but we're
not an ordinary 2% when we're in that room. And politically, the
excellence that I was able to see
immediately is something that still lives with me. But once they went
outside, Tip and Teddy would be telling the jokes
to the crowd and whatever. Old buddy, old pal. But it was all towards
getting the votes, towards getting us twice as
much as any other state, OK? That was always how it worked. CAROLINE KENNEDY: Well done. ED MARKEY: Yeah. Well done. So I think it's about time for
our audience to have questions for the Senator. So if you would like to
line up at the microphones that would be great. And I have been
asked to remind you to keep your questions questions
and please tell us your name and where you're from
and go right ahead. DIEGO GARCIA: Hello. Senator Markey, thank
you for coming thank you. My name is Diego Garcia. I'm a junior at the college
from Fairfax County, Virginia. And I'm just wondering
what role you see for nuclear energy
in the Green New Deal? ED MARKEY: Nuclear energy is
in trouble in the marketplace. There are two nuclear
power plants that are now being constructed in Georgia. They would generate about
2,200 megawatts of electricity but they have a
federal loan guarantee, because it's hard to
build a nuclear power plant unless this
socialistic system isn't in place that guarantees them. That the federal government
picks up the loss if they go bankrupt. And I don't like socialism,
but when it comes to the energy industry, they love socialism. They love all the tax breaks
and all of the legal protections which they can receive. So what I had my
staff last week do was take-- that's a great
question you're asking, take those 2200 megawatts,
and so far, the $27 billion that has been spent
on these two plants, and it's still 5
years from completion, and they're five
years behind schedule, but they are still five
years from completion. And just translate that into how
many megawatts of electricity would we get for $27 billion? And it's 3 times
more than nuclear. So if you're an executive
across the country who runs a utility right now
with wind and solar energy efficiency, now at
such low prices, I think it's going to be
a hard decision for them to make and to convince
their board that they should move in that direction. At the same time, it
can't be ruled out. That is that if there can be
a way in which they can figure out how to construct
these plants, and to do so in a
cost effective way. But for the most
part, Adam Smith is rolling in his grave
thinking about all of the federal subsidies that
go to that industry while wind and solar, we
have to fight every two years to try to
extend the tax break for these nascent industries
that got nothing for 100 years while the oil and gas
industry, the nuclear industry, have been subsidized. So under our proposal, if
it isn't non-polluting, if it is renewable. If it is clean energy,
then it can play a role, but it should compete
in the marketplace and I believe that if there is
a full competitive marketplace that wind and solar energy
efficiency efficiency, and geothermal are going to win. Just for your
information, in 2018, there were 20,000
megawatts of wind and solar deployed
in our country. To put it another way, the
Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant is 1,000 megawatts. 20,000 megawatts of
wind and solar deployed. Last year, there were
20,000 megawatts. 2017. This year, there are going
to be 20,000 megawatts. So that would be just
60,000 in three years while there hasn't been
a new nuclear power plant and the only two that
are under construction are only going to be a grand
total of 2,000 and they're down in
Georgia and they're five years behind schedule. So just looking at
it realistically, and trying to assess
between now and 2030, what's going to make the
largest contribution to new electrical generation,
which is non greenhouse gas emitting,
practically speaking it's most likely to be
wind and solar. And the price has collapsed
and energy efficiency is also there. And by the way,
economic analysts believe that it's a $5
trillion marketplace. So there's going to be a lot
of private sector interest into capturing this sector. And if we deploy four
times more renewables as we have so far, and just
increase our energy efficiency, and by the way, those
are insulation unions. Those are just blue collar
people going in and doing the work on energy efficiency. We could meet the challenge
and provide $5 trillion worth of private
sector profit making. So that's a tough environment
for nuclear power, given the fact that they've
only been able to build a handful since 1980. And so it's highly unlikely
that it will play anything. It may play a role,
but it will be a relatively small role compared
to the renewable revolution. Yes ma'am. LYLE: Hi. My name is Lyle. I am a sophomore at the College. Thank you both for being here. My question is also along the
lines of the Green New Deal, which you mentioned at the
beginning you would like to see a voting issue in 2020. Another event happening in
2020 is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, which
provides an opportunity for a revitalization within
the environmental movement. So my question
is, what would you like to see from young
people, specifically to ensure that that
revitalization happens and that actually
garners results? ED MARKEY: Well, the
First Clean Air Act was President Kennedy in 1963,
which people forget about. So it wasn't the 1970 act, it
was the 1963 Kennedy Clean Air Act, OK? And so that's where it began. And Jerome Wiesner,
the president of MIT was his science advisor. And he said, we have
to do something. So that's the Constitution. That's where it all began. Earth Day in 1970 came
after the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught on fire. Everyone was watching
on television, a river a river is on fire. That's how many
chemicals were in it. We had the Silent
Spring by Rachel Carson, which had been written. And campuses across the
country, all of a sudden, they rose up in environmental
movement, which did not exist. It was really started
by Rachel Carson. This brilliant woman. There was a great documentary,
by the way, you should-- it's like an hour and a half. Just go to this documentary. See the role this woman played
in changing the whole attitude of our country. So that's what we need. We need a revival. Mark Twain used to say that
history doesn't repeat itself, but it does tend to rhyme. So here we are, we're back
again with a president who gives a State
of the Union address for an hour and 20
minutes and does not mention climate change. Does not mention
the environment. Doesn't even talk
about an issue which is an existential
threat to our planet. To our existence. So it's up to the green
generation to rise up. It happened in the late 60s. And all of a sudden,
we have Earth Day. And by the way,
Richard Nixon then signs the bill that
creates the EPA. Trust me, it wasn't his idea. Just trust me. OK. There was a political storm
that rose up across our country. And all of a sudden,
we need an EPA, right? But in 2019, EPA now stands
for Every Polluters Ally, and we all know it. They just named a
coal lobbyist to be the head of the Environmental
Protection Agency. I mean how cynical is that? So this generation's challenge
is you've got to get up. You got to go out and work That's what that generation did. This agency is now captured. It's no longer a
watchdog, it's a lap dog. They're just taking
regulations off the books. And so we need to not
agonize, but organize. And it's got to be on every
campus, every high school, every college, all
across the country. It's got to be a
voting issue, people have to say it's important. People have to make it personal. It is personal,
because it's going to happen in your lifetimes. The worst, most catastrophic
consequences of it. But for some reason
or other, Donald Trump and the Koch brothers
think they're going to get away with it. You know what I think
is going to happen? And I'll tell you
a little story. My bill passed on
the House floor with Henry Waxman and 2009, that
was called the Waxman Markey bill. So it passed on the House floor
and it reduce greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050. 80% reduction in
greenhouse gases by 2050. And it died in the Senate. Mitch McConnell killed
it in the Senate in 2010. But retrospectively,
here's what we learned. That's when the Koch
brothers and the polluters started spending their
money because we were polling at 70% when it started. They drove it down 20 points. They drove it down 20 points. So by 2010, we didn't
have the political capital to get it over the finish
line in the Senate, even though Obama was president. Well, now it's 2019. We got it back up to 73%
across the whole country. You know what the difference is? We now have an army on our side,
we now have money on our side. And we're ready to fight. But you got to get up
and go out and do it. And if we do it, good
luck to the Koch brothers. Good luck to Peabody coal. Good luck to the polluters. Because we're going
to make a metaphor out of the EPA in terms of
what it is now doing. And when you become a metaphor
you're in trouble politically. That's all I can tell you. And so it's going to require
a whole bunch of work by a whole bunch of
creative social media geniuses to help to make sure
that this becomes a voting issue. And I would say it really is
the generational challenge. We have to stop it. 2020 has to be at the
end of it and we just remove anyone that is getting
in the way of the Green Revolution, which is necessary
in order to save this planet. We're running out of
time and Donald Trump and his cronies just have
to be taught this lesson. And either they change
the legislation, which is highly unlikely,
or we change them. And they're out of office. So that's your charge, that's
why you're here at the Kennedy School you're. In the upper one half
of 1% of all the people who have ever lived in
the history of the world just by being in this room. And President
Kennedy used to say to those whom much is
given, much is expected, that's who you are. You are the people
he was talking about. And so it has to
be you and you have to figure out a way of
organizing around this. And in 2020, we'll have
a national referendum on this issue. So go get them. Thank you. Appreciate it. [APPLAUSE] BEN BULGER: Hi My
name is Ben Bulger and I'm a Harvard alum
and a grad student. And my question is for
Ambassador Kennedy. Obviously, it was very
productive to have a positive relationship with
Japan and when you realized that President
Trump was elected, how did you use your
time as ambassador to help create an enduring
relationship with Japan that might survive any disruption
within the administrative change? CAROLINE KENNEDY: Well, we have
here the chairman of the Asia subcommittee so he
also can speak to this, but Japan is our strongest ally
in Asia as many people know. And absolutely crucial to
our leadership in Asia. And so as that
region is becoming more and more important, I
think anybody who's in office is going to see the importance
of Japan, a US Japan alliance. And so even President
Trump, I think, although he hasn't actually
done too much to help our ally, recognizes that it is important. So I think that the
US Japan relationship was in very strong shape
under President Obama. He had put a lot more
emphasis on the rebalance, he went to Hiroshima, the first
sitting president to do so. And that meant a tremendous
amount to the Japanese people. And TPP was the centerpiece
of the rebalance strategy. So I think that the
pieces are there and the next president hopefully
will be able to construct them back up into an
even more positive, but Japan is a very loyal ally. And I think that there are
many, many relationships that are very, very strong
throughout the security, realm economic realm, and so I'm not
worried about our alliance. But I think that the senator
has been, is one of the people to have gone to the North
Korea, China border. And certainly what's going
on with North Korea has a direct impact on Japan
and also on our presence in the region. So I don't know if you
have anything you'd like-- ED MARKEY: It's hard
for me to follow on you. You are the expert on Japan. I am the top Democrat
on the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate
on the Asia subcommittee. So I actually took a delegation
there and to Korea and to China in August of 2017. And part of it was
just to reassure Japan that we're on their side, we're
still there to protect them. When the president says, I
have a wonderful relationship with President Kim, North
Korea, and don't worry about their nuclear program. Believe me, they worry. Because they don't
think it's stopping. They think it's continuing. And it's our responsibility
to ensure that we actually take the steps to keep the
pressure on North Korea to end their ballistic missile
and their nuclear weapons development program. And that's key for our alliance
with Japan and with South Korea as well. We have to give them
those assurances. And so that's why it was
great to have Ambassador Kennedy there in Japan because
that was a constant reassurance and they need to have it. But the president I
think is a little bit out of contact with
the facts, let's just say that, in terms
of North Korea. And wishful thinking cannot
replace hard analysis for what is actually going on, and even
the intelligence experts who testified last week had to
admit there was no evidence that the North Koreans were
stopping their program. And so that's key for Japan. It's key for all of our
allies in the region. And ultimately,
if they progress, it'll be key to our own
security in the United States if they develop an
ICBM program that they can put a miniaturized
nuclear weapon on top of. So we have a stake
in the long term in making sure we protect Japan
and the other allies right now. So thank you sir. ESCHAR: Is it my turn? OK. Hi, my name is Eschar. I'm a physician and a
current grad student here at the School
of Public Health. I'm also a Zimbabwean who is in
the US here survived and dealt with housing insecurity,
homelessness, and food insecurity. And so my question
is one thing, I'm so grateful to be
here at Harvard. But it dawned on
me that making it in terms of the
educational pipeline isn't enough for
low income students, for students from
slum communities, from students from high
density communities, even here in Boston. So what are we
doing or what do you think you hope to do
in order to give more, whether it's mental health
services support or even just mentorship, your presence
in some of the schools here in Mattapan, in Roxbury,
all across the country, other northern rural states. Because I think we
celebrated the one kid who made it, who
was good in school. And it's a lot. It's a lot. And I'm tired. And so to expect once we get to
Harvard to then go back and be the savior of your community
without more support is a lot. So is it in your
mission at least to go back and help those
kids in those communities who need you? ED MARKEY: So I
grew up in Malden. My wife and I still live in
the same house in Malden. And Malden High School
last year, 65,000 people. 3 miles from here. Graduating class was 28%
white, 25% Asian, 24% black, 23% Latino. The most diverse high
school in the United States, 28, 25, 24, 23. OK. But it's the same income level
as when I was growing up. We're still in the
bottom 25 percentile in Massachusetts of the
351 cities and towns. Now, when I was
growing up in Malden, in that same community, my
father worked for the milk company, my mother doesn't work. She stays home. But all three boys are going to
go to Boston College and Boston College Law School. Commuters, but still. Well think about three kids
growing up in that same house today. Boston College is
$70,000 a year, times three kids, $210,000. Times seven years to get
through law school? $1.5 million for that education? Well, those kids can't go there. It'll be some kid from a
suburb who'll get that seat. OK. Not because they're smarter
than the kid from Malden, but because the family
just can't afford it. And that's probably
a third of the class at every single good
school in America. That those kids just can't go,
because they can't afford it. And that's not right. Now, we also have
a funding problem, because Malden's
not rich the way-- Mattapan's not rich. Brockton's not rich, Lawrence
is not rich, Lynn's not rich. So the kids are just
as smart as they were when I was growing up. But we could afford
to go to college. I could work in the summer,
I could make the money, I could take out the loan
and I could pay it back within the 10 years, no problem. That's not true today. So I would put that
near the top of the list where we have now
become a society with mobility which is limited. And that's unacceptable in a
United States that has always had that vision
that you could reach the American dream or
your own personal dream, whatever you want it to be. I became a Congressman, I'm
running for the Congress at age 29? My father was a milk man? I've never been to
Washington and I can do it. I raise $50,000 to run. Today, that same kid
had $2 to $3 million. It's not happening in
this modern society. Money. Money, right? So I put that at
the top of the list. And you know what
I learned, too? Because we lived
on the same street. Across the street
are the Haitians. Or the Chinese. Or the Brazilians. Our whole street is
from other countries. And the mother and
father are working. And they might come home
at 1:00 in the morning, you can hear the cab
from Cambridge pulling into the driveway in
Malden as they've just finished their last route. They're killing
themselves and they still can't afford to send their kid. And they're still expected
to take care of their kids to make sure that all of
their mental health problems and all the other issues
that they might have are going to be taken care of. So we have to change
the funding formula. You cannot have money as
the determinant of what your ability is in order
to maximize your God given abilities. And we have to democratize
access to opportunity through education and
health care in our country. And we are far from
completing that mission. And even though Massachusetts
is number one in math, verbal, and science
at the fourth, eighth, and 10th grades, and
we are number one in America, we know how much work we
still have left to do. And you are putting
your finger right on it. This whole mobility issue is
at the center of this problem that we have in our country that
even after the Great Recession, that 94% of all the profits
went to the wealthiest in our country and left almost
nothing for these people who are in the bottom. And that's where
I live every day. And they're working just
as hard as any other group of immigrants has
ever worked, OK? And they get stigmatized
because of the countries that they all come
from now in Malden. As the president,
says we're going to make America great
again and he really is making America hate again. So they have to live
with that as well. As they are walking around
the streets of our country. So for me, I put that at the top
of the list, because I'm here. I'm here as an American
story, all right? There were no limits and my
mother always told me that. Because of what happened
to her family, her mother, she didn't get to get
the opportunities which she should have had. Back in Ireland, they
weren't doing so great. No one leaves the country
because they're doing great in that country, OK? We all share that in common. So when my grandmother
and grandfather got off the boat in Malden it
was because they weren't doing great in the old country. And I just hate the whole idea
of people pulling up the ramp, our people have
made it, now we've moved to the suburbs, who cares
about this next generation? Or the next generation is the
21st century for our country. So that's why we have to
invest in community colleges. I talked to the Bunker
Hill Community College president, the Roxbury
Community College president, here's what they'd like
amongst other things. If you are a kid at Malden
High School in Roxbury, how about away for free, if
you're a junior, let's say, you just go over and
take the college credits beginning at Bunker Hill so you
can start to get used to it. Because you've never had
anyone in your family in college for full credit. How about a way of
ensuring that we're thinking through what
these families are going to need for the ideation? So how can you maximize
your God given abilities in this country? So there's many
different ways in which we can look at this issue. But at its heart,
it's a money issue. And and when these tax cuts for
the wealthy in the Trump era get passed, all
that money is going to come out of programs
that could have helped our country be far
greater if we had invested in these generations of
young people in Malden, in Boston, in Cambridge,
but all across the country who really do represent
that entrepreneurial spirit. That sense of hard work
that really has transformed our country over
200 years and will continue to do so if
we're a wise people. And I think that's going to be
on the ballot as well in 2020. I think this whole
issue of how we treat immigrants, how we
treat minorities, how we have an administration which
is dismissing them for political reasons,
is going to be something that's going to be challenging
the conscience of our country. And my belief is that
if you're all out there, and we're all out
there, that we're going to win this
referendum and we're going to change the
budgets of our country to reflect the
priorities that we should have for the 21st century. So thank you and thank you for
what you do with your family too. [APPLAUSE] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Hi, Senator Markey. My name is [INAUDIBLE],, I'm
a sophomore at the College from Weston, Massachusetts. And I had a question
about the Green New Deal. ED MARKEY: Great. AUDIENCE MEMBER: It
does seem fairly obvious that the deal will need a little
bit of bipartisan support. And so my question is,
what is the incentive for Congress members of
Congress and obviously the president himself-- ED MARKEY: What is the what? AUDIENCE MEMBER: The incentive
for members of Congress and the president
himself to sign on to a solution for a problem that
they don't even believe exists? ED MARKEY: OK that's great. So the question isn't will every
Democrat sign on to the Green New Deal, the question is,
will any Republican sign on to the Green New Deal? And again, the problem is that
their paymasters of the Koch brothers or the oil companies,
they're the polluters. They're the largest
contributors to the party. So we have a dilemma. And that's why you're here
at the Kennedy School. Because we know that
in polling, the public agrees with the Green New Deal. It polls off the charts. Public wants this wind, solar,
all electric vehicle, battery, revolution. They want to see it happen. So we just have to be more
creative, more effective in engaging the
political system. Give Trump credit. He won. He targeted the
parts of the country that he thought he could
influence and he pulled it off. So the challenge
that comes back to us is what are we going to do? We work smarter, and not harder? Well, that's who you all are. What are those
strategies that we're going to reach the people who
we know agree with these issues and then get them out to vote? So liberals are usually
right but too soon. So sometimes you got to wait
for the country to show up, to catch up with us. So and we're Massachusetts,
so we do gay marriage first, we do universal
health care first, we go first, and say it's safe,
the Commonwealth survived. OK. You can try it too. So a big part of this is
just have to go out there. We have the strongest gun
laws in the United States. We also have the
lowest gun fatality rate in the United States. I wonder if there's
a correlation. So a big part of what we have
to do is just change the laws. And again, this movement
that David and the others are up there, they
weaponized that issue. And we can put that issue
on the ballot as well. Universal background checks,
no gun show purchases without a background check,
they just did it in 2018, but it'll be much bigger. Same thing is true with wind and
solar and all electric vehicles and reducing greenhouse
gases, saving the planet. We're going to run about
$30 to $40 trillion worth of damage to our country
by 2100 if we do not stop this greenhouse gas epidemic. So we have to figure
out how to weaponize it and then Donald
Trump might not cave, but I think a lot
of Republicans who have suburban districts
all across the country are going to be wondering
know whether or not they're jeopardizing their own seats. Politics is a stimulus
response business. And there's nothing more
stimulating than millions of people who are rising
up to threaten you and your job as a United
States Congressman or Senator. And so it's all education,
activation, implementation. You have to put it
together, the plan, and go out there and do it. The raw material for an
incredible political revolution is there in 2020. And every day, Donald
Trump makes it easier for us to make the case
that we have to make the fundamental changes. So thank you. Good question. Yes ma'am. APRIL: Hello. ED MARKEY: Hi. APRIL: Hi. My name is April. I'm a first year JD
at Harvard Law School. It's a pleasure being here. I'm from Beijing, China. My question for
you is that for you both actually,
Ambassador and Senator, you both went to law school. So I was curious about the
thinking like a lawyer aspect and how that plays a huge
part into your public service dimension. Your careers. Thank you. ED MARKEY: About the what? What do you mean? APRIL: About-- so,
at law school we talk a lot about
thinking like a lawyer, so I was thinking
about the ways that you think like a lawyer in your
later public service careers. ED MARKEY: You want to-- CAROLINE KENNEDY: Well as
somebody who went to law school but never
really practiced law, I would still say that there
are so many opportunities and every single one of them is
enhanced by the legal training that you receive. And so I think that
whether it's knowing how to mobilize on an issue or
how to advocate for your cause or obviously in
the practice of law and certainly dealing in
an international context, I think having
the legal training is more important than ever. I have one of my children
is in law school now so I'm excited to
see all over again and how much more
dynamic I think the legal education has become. So I'm sure you're having
an incredible experience. And I hope that you
will go on to give back with all that you've learned
and been given at Harvard Law School, because it's an
incredible opportunity. ED MARKEY: Yeah I
guess what I would say to you is that
I went to law school so I could become a politician. And that was my goal. But I really thought
that law school would be like the
mental heavy lifting that you would need in order to
understand how laws are made, how to look at laws, and
understand that if they're not written very carefully,
that they may not actually achieve their intended effect. But also to think of it
as like a public policy forum for three years. Because you have to understand
why each one of these laws got put on the books
that you're now being asked by your professor
in class to analyze. So it was an-- but I have become
so concerned that I might fall into the trap. Because I was given these
offers from big law firms to come and work as a summer
associate for much more money than I would have been making
if I went into public service. So you have to avoid the trap. It's like quicksand. And the thing I learned
in geology class is that the more you
wiggle in quicksand, is actually the deeper you go. If you don't wiggle,
you don't go down. But you get in deeper and
deeper as you're in these summer associate jobs. And you can see all the money. And now, oh my
goodness, I wanted to-- I know I wrote on my application
I wanted to save the world, but maybe I'll do it in five
more years or 10 more years, OK? And so what I did was
I actually decided in my third year at
Boston College Law School to run for state representative
in Malden and [INAUDIBLE] and I won. And so, like
Caroline, my goal is to avoid ever having a client. And so far I've avoided
it my whole life. Because my plan was not to
write wills or contracts, notwithstanding how much
more money I would have made. I have been and I continue to
be the lowest paid graduate of my law school class. But I'm a very happy person,
because my clients, working for people who need help, who
can't afford lawyers, right? And so that's really
what public servants do. They work for those people. And that's what
the Kennedy School does, so keep studying hard,
but don't get locked in. Think of it-- be
ambitious generally, but not specifically. Don't get trapped into
what everyone else is saying they're going to do. Leave open the options
for what a law degree can do, because you can
take it into almost any part of American
society or global society. It's a passport to
do whatever you want. Yeah. Thank you. CAROLINE KENNEDY: I think
that's a great place to end. I personally thought your
qualifications were selling ice cream on Lexington green,
but now I find it's-- ED MARKEY: Oh, you want
me to tell that one story? CAROLINE KENNEDY: OK, tell
that one story. and then we're going to go. ED MARKEY: So, all right. So here's how I started. So my mother was mad. My mother said, you should
have studied harder, Eddie. I don't know why you didn't
get that scholarship. It's your fault. Do
you think your father's going to take a second job? That's not going to happen. Think I'm going to go to work? That's not going to happen. You should have
just studied harder. So we'll sign any loans
you want, but you're going to pay them back. OK. But so what I did was,
for four years in college, I drove an ice cream truck. From Memorial Day to Labor Day. And it's a big truck. And you got to
pay for the lease, you got to buy your own ice
cream, buy your own gasoline, find your own customers. I'm from Malden, I
could figure out Malden, but then they said you
should try Lexington. So I'm 18 years old,
I go out to Lexington. Not Malden. So I'm there for about a month. And the way ice cream
trucks work is you've got to ring the bell. It's Pavlovian. So you want the kids to know, at
6:05 every day on First Street, I'm there. You'll miss it. And 6:10 on 42nd Street. It's just Pavlovian. That's how it's efficient. So you're 18, so
I'm figuring it out. So one day, I decided to go
down to the Lexington green. I saw all these people there. So I pull up. Well, all of a sudden, I got
all these people around me and there's one final kid. And I'm waiting. And a policeman
comes in and says, no selling of ice
cream downtown. So do I sell it
to this final kid who's looking up with
the money in his hand for the double fudgicle? Or do I just close the window? So I said, would you like--
and the police officer just shut the window. Says, follow me. So presently, I was over
in the police station with the police chief
and this officer. And he pulled out the
1798 town ordinance prohibiting the sale
of victuals by means of ringing a bell
within the boundaries of the town of Lexington. And so, we will escort you
down to the Arlington Lexington line, Massachusetts Avenue. And if you don't come
back again, it's OK. But if you come back
again, it's 30 days under the town ordinance in
that cell right over there. So the next night, I came back. However, I did not have to ring
my bell, because it's 6:05, kids will be on
First Street at 6:10. But I told them I cannot
sell ice cream to you. I've been kicked out of
the town [INAUDIBLE].. So the mothers came down. The kids are crying. And the next Tuesday night, at
the Board of Selectmen meeting, there were 25 mothers
and kids wondering how there could be a town
ordinance prohibiting ice cream for the children of Lexington? And at my first political
victory at age 18 by a 5 to 0 vote, the town of Lexington
Board of Selectmen overturned a 1798 statute. And I said to myself, I might
have a career in politics. I understand organizing. And so my challenge to you is on
gun control, on climate change, on DOCA, on immigration, on
discrimination in our society, you all have careers in
changing our country. And putting on the
books the laws that give opportunities to
everyone in our society. Thank you all for being here. Thank you, Caroline. [APPLAUSE] CAROLINE KENNEDY:
Thank you so much. That was fantastic. Thank you. Thank you all for being such a--
