The Pickens Podcast episode for this week features my conversation with two former U.S. Senators who have each served as Majority Leader. Tom Daschle (D) and Trent Lott (R) may represent the last time in our lifetimes we will have seen two men, with opposite views, from different political parties, work together to solve great problems. “We worked to find common ground,” Lott told me.
Daschle reminded me that when they were leaders of their sides of the aisle, they produced three balanced budgets. “Everything was on the table,” he said, “spending cuts and revenue increases.”
They have written a new book, “Crisis Point: Why We Must – and How We Can – Overcome our Broken Politics in Washington and Across America.”
They talked about how trying to reach across the aisle has become so much harder than when they were serving as Senators. “The biggest problem,” Lott said, “is the airplane. It’s too easy for everyone to fly home. They don’t bring their families to Washington, so they don’t socialize with each other, the families don’t know each other.”
Lott said he is not too happy with what’s going to happen in either party, Trump or Hillary. Daschle said, “a lot of people are what Peggy Noonan called ‘unprotected’. They’re not part of the establishment and they don’t think the establishment cares about them.”
This is an important conversation with two men who were at the center of the storm for many years.
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