On December 18, 2019, U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson was given 30 seconds to publicly address the House of Representatives during the debate over whether or not to impeach President Donald Trump. Thirty seconds. It’s a wonderful sound-bite length for a world that feeds on sound-bites, but it’s deeply inadequate for the thoughtful unpacking of a nuanced debate.
Congressman Johnson is a Republican newcomer in a class of freshman who have made news weekly for their outsized impact on the way Washington does business. Most of those newsmakers have been Democrats.
We wanted to capture this moment in time for a Republican freshman from South Dakota. What was it like to stand up during this particular debate in American history? How can we move from division and rancor to a more collaborative discourse, or as Johnson himself says, a “more peaceful and more thoughtful time?”
Congressman Johnson stopped by the SDPB Sioux Falls studio and gave us an hour of his time. He placed no restrictions on what he was willing to talk about.
You can listen to the full, 45 minute conversation with Congressman Johnson here. You can also read the transcript of the conversation below — more than 8,000 words (more than 20 pages if you print it out).
Which, if you ask me, is a whole lot better than 30 seconds.
Transition to Washington
Lori Walsh:
First of all, thank you for stopping by the Sioux Falls studio. What's it like to be home?
Dusty Johnson:
You know, a day in South Dakota is much better than a day in Washington, D.C. I actually liked the job the first eight or nine months a little more than I thought I would. The last two or three months of this year has maybe not been as rewarding.
Lori Walsh:
Let's start at the beginning, because really from the first day that you arrive in Congress, there are some freshman lawmakers who are already talking about impeachment, who have been voted in, largely in districts that the president had won before, and they come with something to say. In early conversations you and I were having, we were talking about some of those folks. Then that sort of faded away and you saw the Democrats fracture a little bit and then unite over impeachment.
From your perspective, you're part of this freshman class as an incoming Republican. How much buzz was there in the very beginning for impeachment that overshadowed other things or did that build where you really only saw it in the last two or three months?
Dusty Johnson:
Well, there are really three incoming freshman classes. There are ninety of us so that's a very, very large freshman class, when you think about the impact that can have on the culture of a place. You almost have one quarter of Congress thrown out and replaced with a bunch of newbies. You've got about 30 Republicans. We're of course, not a monolith, but I think we don't have the same kind of internal fracturing that the Democratic freshmen do. So then you've got two freshman classes and the largest bulk of them are not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' friends or confederates or partners.
She leads a coalition of people who have had some very strongly held opinions and frankly have been driving a lot of the narrative. But a much larger portion of the Democrats are more moderate and are people that just have these resumes that would blow you away. Mikie Sherrill, our nation's first Navy combat pilot. Abigail Spanberger, our career CIA agent. Elissa Slotkin, a former deputy under Secretary for State and a former high executive official on the National Security Council of President Bush. If you were going to do a story, if NPR were going to do a story on the Democrat freshmen women, so often they made that story about Ilhan Omar or AOC. They're a much smarter part of that class than frankly some of the others I'm mentioning.
Lori Walsh:
Those people that you mentioned and yourself, you have a learning curve. Some of those people have said publicly, "You know, I was not a legislator ever before, so I'm learning constituent relations. I'm learning legislation. I'm thinking about re-election." What was that transition like for you as far as the learning curve?
Dusty Johnson:
There was not as much of a learning curve as I expected. Now, as I think we've talked about before, some of my colleagues did come in with in essence, no government experience as you alluded to. Kim Schrier who is a friend of mine had been a pediatrician for 35 years so she's really an expert in some things but parliamentary procedure wouldn't have been one of them. How the small business administration works or veterans affairs work, that wouldn't been in her wheelhouse. Those policy-type things were more in my wheelhouse.
I also had, both in my time in business and my time in government, had a number of really smart, dedicated people who I knew I liked working with. So we staffed up very quickly. I don't care how good you think you are, if you're in Congress and you view it as a one-person event, you're going to fail. You have to have a great team of people who share values and are willing to work hard. We hit the ground running because of those people and I think it put us in a position to have some leadership roles that are not normally given to freshmen: Being the floor manager for a major piece of Native American legislation. Being named the ranking member of the committee that oversees food stamps. Just these things that you don't normally get an opportunity to do in your first year in Congress.
Lori Walsh:
You also come from South Dakota without necessarily a great mandate to do one thing. This is a state that voted for Trump strongly. They voted for you strongly. Do you have a sense of, I need to think about re-election but I'm not being driven by re-election like maybe some of the other people are perceiving that they really need to. They were sent here to do something and now they better do it.
Dusty Johnson:
Yes. I don't even know that the voters that sent Roshita Tlaib to Washington, they don't think with a single mind either. Clearly Roshita who is one of “the squad” we talk about. She was one that was very vocal in sometimes profane terms about wanting to get rid of the President. She had strongly held opinions on that thing and talked a lot about that thing. I don't know that her voters were a monolith on that point though. What I've tried to remind myself is ... South Dakota is very diverse. Every congressional district has a fair amount of diversity. What we want to do is try to be effective in more than just one dimension. We've got farmers, that matters. We've got educators, that matters. We've got people who have disabilities, that matters.
We're trying to fight back on these terrible tragedies, the suicides. There are a hundred things we could be working on. On one hand we have to focus. Particularly in the house, you don't get to do 100 things effectively. You got to pick two or three or four if you really want to have an impact. But at the same time in a very broad sense, we need to be try to be a customer — a citizen-focused — agency where we're helping people navigate this incredibly large federal government that sometimes doesn't take care of their unique situation. I think all things considered, we're done a really good job there.
Lori Walsh:
It's a really effective point. I think that even South Dakotans are not monolithic.
Dusty Johnson:
Right.
How do South Dakotans view impeachment?
Lori Walsh:
Give me an example of a day in the life or a week in the life. When people reach out to your office whether they need help with something or whether they're providing feedback on something, is there consensus? I that even a word that you would attempt to use about different topics? Did you know how South Dakotans felt about impeachment?
Dusty Johnson:
We are currently not a monolith. You can build a lot of common ground in South Dakota if you're willing to get out and about. If you only sit back in the office and listen to the phone calls, you have a sense that everybody is furious. Half of the people who call think President Trump is a terrible human being that needs to be thrown out of the office immediately. The other half think that he is a savior that has been really sent here by God to improve the country.
You have a very polarized sense if you just sit in your office and listen to the phone calls. If you actually get out and you go to the Black Hills stock show and you go the Fair and you go to a ballgame and if you go deliver Meals on Wheels. If you really are a part of the community, you understand that most of us are pretty conflicted about these big issues of the day. Even if we have strongly held world views, we understand that there's got to be a little give and take in a lot of these policy situations.
We have a sense that things are complicated and that's why we send people to Washington. We want them to have our values. We want them to do their homework. We want them to be honest and hardworking but somebody's got to read the 2,000 page bill and it isn't going to be me because I just got done working a back-to-back shift at the convenience store and now I’ve got to help my kid with a science project. We're not a monolith either but you can build a lot of common ground.
Lori Walsh:
As we get closer to the impeachment hearings and the inquiry in the House and then the debate on the House floor, how does the tone change in Washington? What's your behind the scenes? This is history happening, unfolding, and maybe when you first were elected you weren't planning on being at the center of this historic American story.
Dusty Johnson:
Impeachment certainly changed the tone. I think it changes the pacing of work in Congress. The first eight or nine months I was pleasantly surprised. The place doesn't work like it should, but it is still a place like Faulkton or Brookings or Sioux Falls or Spearfish, where hard work does manifest itself in some positive outcomes.
I was able to pass legislation. I was able to be on the Whip team for important bills. I was able to help people and we were moving the needle on a number of things. The last two or three months there was more of a pall, there was more of a shadow. There was a gravity or a weight. It was harder to go from hearing people say really impassioned, sometimes rude things to an hour later trying to figure out a way forward with them on what a labor enforcement provisions of USMCA look like.
It did in a serious way arrest some policy development in the last quarter or two of the year. There are many prices to be paid anytime you engage in political battles but that's one of them. There are things I think like prescription drugs that there is no excuse why we didn't get that done in 2019.
What did you think of the now-famous phone call?
Lori Walsh:
You saw a lot of people grappling, a lot of Congressmen and Congresswomen grappling with the gravity of the phone call itself from one perspective or the other. By “the phone call” I'm referring to President Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian president which is at the center of the impeachment. As you looked into it before all the noise, you have a moment where you're just evaluating as a person. "What do I think of this?" What were some of your early impressions about (the phone call)? Not again, how you voted, not that far down the line, but some initial impressions. Did you think it was wrong?
Dusty Johnson:
I was surprised that this was the situation that I think launched this final chapter of this impeachment issue. That's not to say that that call was handled as I would have handled it. Clearly I think there are phrases that the President would like to claw back if he had an opportunity to. He's also got a really interesting way of talking in person. It is incredibly casual and informal and kind of jocular and not really as lasered as most, particularly international conversations are.
He's got a drastically different way of talking. That's why I think the context around this does matter. There's one set of context if you wrap that around the call you can think, "Well, that's not that bad." There's a different context you can wrap around that call where you can say, "Well, that is problematic." I think that's what we've been fighting about. The call on its own is not dispositive for me. You want to have an environment where you understand exactly what was meant and exactly what happened after that. But regardless of all that, I am surprised that this was the issue that I think brought us to this point.
How did you decide what to say during the debate?
Lori Walsh:
So we get closer to the point where you get to get up and have your say during the actual debate. We all know how you're going to vote because you were open in what you were thinking and we know sort of what's happening here in South Dakota so there wasn't a big “How will Congressman Dusty Johnson cast his vote?” You do have to make decisions. Did you decide what you were going to say on your own? Did you know what other people were going to say first? Give us the inside scoop on how that was planned or was it all organic and people just came and said what they had to say?
Dusty Johnson:
For us it was pretty organic, for me, for our team. I didn't think I was going to get on the floor. I was 15th on the waiting list. Those slots went pretty quickly and we were just a little slow to respond to the email. Certain people were going to get time to speak no matter what. People who were on the judiciary or oversight or intelligence committees were going to get longer periods of time to kind of lay out the factual or political basis for their votes. When you're dealing with 435 members, everybody who wants a couple of minutes, that's 15 hours.
We did not have 15 hours of the day. We had closer to a third of that. I didn't know that I was going to get on. I was there on the floor for a good chunk of the day because I was interested in trying to take in as many perspectives as I could. Then finally they said, "Well, Dusty, if you're ready, go." I said, "How long do I have." They said, "We think we can give you 30 seconds."
I'm not a fan of the 30 seconds because I just don't know if you can impart any real wisdom in 30 seconds. So rather than try to re-litigate all of the issues, rather than try to have a conversation about whether or not removing somebody from office is the appropriate sanction for what happened, I just thought, I'm going to say something that nobody else has said today and that is that we’ve got to be better tomorrow than we have been in the last few months.
That's not the kind of comment that is going to make you famous on any of the cable news networks. You're not going to be the lead story that night. There's not much of a constituency or a coalition around decency. But a lot of my colleagues were listening and said something to me afterwards.
Lori Walsh:
That's what I was going to ask you next. Who were you speaking to at that point? Your colleagues, us back at home, history? Who is your audience?
Dusty Johnson:
I don't want to seem egocentric ... but probably first and foremost myself. So much of the system we all have rewards rancor. Most people by the time they get to Congress, they've become experts at adjusting to an environment. Well, maybe I don't agree with this political science professor's views but if I write the paper this way, I know I can get the A. Well, this boss wants me to clean the floor differently than I have ever cleaned the floor but if I clean it this way, the boss will like me better.
We're really good at adapting to an environment and being successful. The problem for me is as somebody who wants to be successful, what do I do when all of the incentives and dis-incentives in the environment are the wrong incentives. How do I keep myself from just playing to those incentives? I periodically have to give myself a pep talk about ... It is not about having the most Twitter followers because I never will. It's not about getting the most invitations to speak on cable news because I never will.
It's not about having 100% approval rating with any particular constituency or narrow slice of the electorate because I never will, because I won't have a voting record that is just a bumper sticker slogan. There are nuances to this. We need to care about the facts. I try to give myself a pep talk and I think more than anything I was just trying to remind myself that tomorrow I've got to get back to work.
Lori Walsh:
There's a point where I'm watching the impeachment hearings live and you are in the front row, and I think it's Congressman Johnson from Ohio who asks for the moment of silence. Everybody stands for a moment of silence for the voters of the 2016 election. He was criticized frequently later for grandstanding. Is this an appropriate use of a moment of silence?
I was watching you of course, because you're my congressman. You put your pen in your jacket and you adjusted your glasses and you stand with everyone else. All I could think of is what a difficult position you were in. You can't stay seated, right? What would that look like? But then you stand up for this moment that maybe you approved of, maybe you disapproved of. Do you remember that moment and what was going through your head?
Dusty Johnson:
I do. I have lots of strongly held opinions. I've never been accused of being a wall flower. I'm not milk toast. I think one of the things that people appreciate and one of the things that gets me in trouble is I really do know what I believe. I have been coached through 20 years of marriage to a really delightful and insightful human being that I don't need to try to impose my views on people all the time. Part of being a good leader is knowing when to use language that is de-escalating.
Understanding that we still have to govern a country, even if I'm furious that my 230 colleagues voted differently than I did on impeachment. If I want to get anything through the House, if we want to improve this country in any way through legislation, I've got to work with them. There is no mathematical way to get anything done without being willing to build consensus in the United States House, the United States Senate and with the White House.
So if people say they just refuse to work with the President, well, that means you won't get anything done. You're not going to override his veto. There has to be a time where we're willing to work together. Throughout this impeachment process although I've had strongly held opinion, I've also tried to use language that doesn't escalate the tensions. We still have a Board of Directors that has to meet and that sometimes means not speaking up, not getting angry, when getting angry doesn't help.
Do the cameras make a difference in how the debate plays out?
Lori Walsh:
Does that same kind of rhetoric happen off camera too? Are people that impassioned and fired up about it or is it something that by and large the cameras are influencing because everyone knows ... You only get 30 seconds but 30 seconds is your sound bite because the camera's watching.
Do you find that when the cameras are off people behave differently?
Dusty Johnson:
It used to be said by somebody famous although I don't remember whom, that Congress in session is Congress doing politics. Congress in committee is Congress at work. Sort of saying the floor is kind of meaningless but in committees you really do get work done. I don't even know if that's true anymore. I would tweak that adage to say, Congress in front of cameras is Congress at play and Congress on their own, real people trying to work through issues, is more Congress at work.
I'm a big proponent of transparency so it kind of hurts me to say that. But I would tell you the informal conversations we have where you can just say, "Come on, Lori, really, you won't go for seven? Like you'll walk away from the table if you don't get eight. Seven, you can't even give us seven." Those are the ways you cut deals, whether you're buying a boat or whether you're trying to figure out ... If parents disagree about something with a child's education, you've got to be willing to come together to find a solution.
I would say people are a little better behaved when they're talking person-to-person but there are still high levels of polarization.
Lori Walsh:
Tom Daschle and Trent Lott wrote a book together where they talked about that. They had to sort of sneak over to each other to even get together because the political costs for getting together was all of a sudden incredibly high. That's not the experience you're having because you're working across the aisle on a lot of things intentionally. Tell me a little bit about what you ... I'm still on the topic of impeachment ... What do you admire about some of the moderate Democrats who have decided now is the time, this phone call is the thing that we need, this is important and here's why. What do you admire about their position?
Dusty Johnson:
I would use this as a dropping off point and we can come back to impeachment. But I would use humanitarian aid for the border as a time when I really think they showed some profiles in courage. The situation was typical D.C. situation. The Senate had their version of $4.5 billion of humanitarian aid to the border. The House had their version and there was going to be some fight and we were getting ready to go work in the district for a few weeks. This aid was needed. The White House had begged for it. The Senate Democrats and Republicans had gotten together because that's often how the Senate works. The House Republicans were more a fan of the Senate package.
But Speaker Pelosi really felt like, "Gosh darn it. No, we're half of the equation here. The House is going to get its package through." Speaker Pelosi is very formidable. She's not used to losing. This was the last day before we were going to cut loose for two weeks, again working in the district but not taking votes. The moderate Democrats said, "This is too important to let standard D.C. politics win the day." So they publicly announced, two dozen of them, that they were supportive. They wanted to join with the House Republicans, the Senate and the White House against the Speaker's package, for the Senate package.
That two dozen was enough votes to scuttle her package and I'm sure she was furious. I'm sure that politically those 24 group of more moderate freshmen received nothing out of that. There's no big donor who cares that much about humanitarian aid at the border. This is an issue we all care about as humans but it doesn't motivate that many people to change their voting decisions or their giving decisions. They did it because it was the right thing to do.
I'm sure they're still paying some price. When you look at impeachment, no matter whether somebody voted yes or no, there is a tremendous political cost you've paid regardless. There are lots of my independent Democrats friend who just says, "I'll never vote for you again." Had I voted differently, there'd be a different constituency that would say that.
Is there a political cost to the impeachment vote?
Lori Walsh:
You think you lost votes by voting against impeachment?
Dusty Johnson:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Lori Walsh:
You would have lost votes if you voted for it.
Dusty Johnson:
Either way, either way.
Lori Walsh:
But you did lose votes.
Dusty Johnson:
There's no question in my mind. I had too many people who have said that's the case.
Lori Walsh:
Well, you've got an opponent for an upcoming election. This is happening to your colleague, your Republican colleague … now I'm forgetting her name. Elise ...
Dusty Johnson:
Oh, Stefanik. (U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY)
Lori Walsh:
Yes. She has an opponent that all of a sudden is getting outside donations ...
Dusty Johnson:
Raised a million dollars in a weekend.
Lori Walsh:
Just because of how vocal she has been supporting the President during the impeachment inquiry. This could, in theory, happen in South Dakota. It’s less likely than in her district, but there is a political cost for you potentially.
Dusty Johnson:
Elise Stefanik's district is almost as Republican as this one. Elise is an outstanding and really hard worker. Very common sense. A real expert on national security policy and on education issues, very highly regarded. It wasn't like that million dollars that her opponent received on the weekend came from Upstate New York. It came from across the country.
Lori Walsh:
Mark Hamill donated.
Dusty Johnson:
Well, there we go, right?
Lori Walsh:
There was a lot of that, a lot of people who just saw her and heard her and said, "We can defeat her."
Dusty Johnson:
That absolutely could happen to me. Her district is only a couple of points less Republican than this one. But how do you ... I can't compete with millions of dollars of out-of-district moneys.
Lori Walsh:
More than 90% of your donations are coming from right here in South Dakota, right? Do I understand that correctly?
Dusty Johnson:
Yeah, that's right. It's hundreds of thousands of dollars in a year. It's not a million over a weekend. When Mark Hamill and other famous people who have lots of money decide they want to take you out, some day it might just be my day and maybe I'll be looking for a different job.
People get so uptight about what's the politically popular thing to do. Every one of these votes is going to irritate somebody. Over a career you're going to collect a lot of barnacles on the hull of that ship. Don't imagine an environment where that hull can be clean and everybody will love you. They won't. Instead, have the ship pointed in the right direction. Just understanding there will be barnacles regardless.
How can we find common ground in American politics?
Lori Walsh:
And that takes us back to that 30 seconds that you have and I think this is a useful lesson for everyone from school children to business leaders. In that 30 seconds you have to think about your own integrity and what you're going to say. If you're worrying about, "If I say this, this will happen. If I say this, my party might think this," you're going to lose your mind and not going to say anything of value. It's an integrity moment for you.
Dusty Johnson:
I don't think we get to run TV ads and give speeches to elementary schools about how terrible bullying is and how important it is to work together and America is great and we built America together and then the very next day go on the floor and call fellow Americans traitors because they happen to disagree on one policy topic or another. If we want to have a country that knows how to get things done, at some point our rhetoric can't attack that very value.
Lori Walsh:
I think voters are ready for that.
Dusty Johnson:
I hope so.
Lori Walsh:
From what I'm hearing people want to know what we agree on more and more. It feels to me like there's a tipping point where people are exhausted from the rancor and they really want people to stand up and say, "Let's figure how to work together." They want the USMCA. We know that.
Dusty Johnson:
If people ... And I hate to give all of your listeners an assignment because Lord knows I've got a lot I need to work on. If we want an environment that focuses more on meat and potatoes and working together and facts rather than political rhetoric, we need to invest in that. We need to invest in media outlets that value objectivity. We need to invest ... I'm not talking about dollars. I'm talking about emotionally and supporting them with words.
You know, politicians and other institutions that value finding common ground. As it is, if I put something more partisan out on Facebook, it will get many, many, many times more engagement than if I talk about me helping to fund an important Lakota language program. Meat and potatoes does not sell as good as the Filet Mignon.
Passing the USMCA trade agreement (without COOL)
Lori Walsh:
Let's talk about what comes after, because immediately after impeachment passes the house, then we see what seems on the outside like a bit of a flurry of bi-partisan activity. We see the passage of USMCA.
You and I have talked about USMCA before. Again, country of origin labeling isn't in it. Not everybody is happy with that. It is not a perfect deal. So two questions. One, how important for South Dakotans especially in the Ag industry and beyond, was the passage of USMCA? To end the year with that win?
Dusty Johnson:
It is really big. Because I like to focus on the positive, I talk exclusively in my floor comments and in my public comments about oh, this is a great win for South Dakota. If I was in a little darker mood, I would have said the only reason that this wasn't done back in July is that we were holding this to try to put some frosting on what some people are going to think is a pretty sour cake of impeachment. This was purposely planned to give some people who voted for impeachment something positive to talk about.
That is unfortunate. It's hard for me to celebrate the flurry of bi-partisan victories when all we did is take 10 things that we should have got done in the middle of the year and end up getting four of them done at midnight. That being said, it is really big deal for South Dakota. There are some people who'll tell you, "Oh, this is just NAFTA 2.0." Well, that might be, but no independent third-party analyst I've heard from agrees.
Their numbers on the low end are 176,000 new jobs. Their numbers on the low end are $2 billion of new Ag exports to Canada and Mexico and their numbers on the low end are $68 billion of new GDP growth. It's a pretty big deal. Particularly for South Dakotans who are in wheat or wine or dairy or poultry, this is a big, big deal for them.
Lori Walsh:
Country of origin labeling. Still something that is important to you?
Dusty Johnson:
Yeah, greater transparency is. I think the consumers deserve that. I feel a little bad; there were some people who were trying to slow down USMCA. A group of my colleagues who I don't even know care all that much about transparency, sent out a letter saying we need COOL in USMCA. Well, the reality is that deal had already been cut. The administration has been done with their negotiations with Canada and Mexico for a year.
You can do some things in side agreements. A lot of this labor enforcement are in side agreements. They didn't re-negotiate the guts of USMCA. It was not possible as much as some of us would have liked greater transparency. It was not possible a year after the deal had been cut and inked, to come in and institute country of origin labeling into that deal. It was never seriously a topic of conversation between Speaker Pelosi and Bob Lighthizer, the President's negotiator.
It was never seriously a topic of debate within the Senate. It was more political smokescreen I think, to try to get some of the American ranchers, friends of mine, to try to have a little bit of a drag on USMCA. It is not perfect but it was not possible for those of us even who if we would have bled and died and sweat for it, to get COOL in that in the last couple of months.
Lori Walsh:
Is it something that you're looking at in the future?
Dusty Johnson:
It's going to be very difficult to get that done. The right mechanism to get that done is in an international trade agreement. In USMCA is not an altogether bad thing to get it done but as Bob Lighthizer told me ... He's the U.S. Trade Representative. "Listen, you walk into these negotiations with a thousand things you want. You're going to walk out if you're lucky, with 600." And that means there are 400 orphaned values, that's just how it works.
I had a Republican colleague in Florida who voted against it because it didn't do quite enough for fruit. I think that was the wrong vote for him. I think the fact that it's going to add 176,000 jobs including I'm sure thousands in Florida, that shouldn't cause him to vote no just because Cherry didn't get exactly what Cherry wanted out of that deal.
All of these big deals, all of these big bills, they're manure sandwiches. There's a lot in them that is tough to swallow but for any of us who tried to run a non-profit or run a business or been on a church board or been married, we understand about cutting a deal that's as good as it's got to be, maybe not as good as you want it to be.
Passing the National Defense Authorization Act
Lori Walsh:
Some of the other recent activity — The National Defense Authorization Act, that’s another effort that went up to the deadline.
Dusty Johnson:
Yes. This sets basically the strategy for our government's military over the course of the next years. Almost all is highly bi-partisan. It was less bi-partisan this time but that's probably an inevitable outcropping of the era we're in. I hear a lot of people say, "Ah, we don't know what any of our delegation does out in D.C." I would just tell you it's because most people don't have time to go read the 2,000 page bill. But if you go read things like the National Defense Authorizing Act, there are (U.S. Senator) John Thune provisions, (U.S. Senator) Mike Rounds provisions. There are Dusty Johnson provisions in that bill.
The way that we acquire new defense systems is different today than it was last year because I worked hard to improve the way we acquire these defense systems. Doesn't lead the 6 o’clock news but I would say South Dakotans should feel good that their delegation, and it's not just because it's this delegation. When we had Stephanie and Tim and Tom (U.S. Representative Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, U.S. Senator Tim Johnson, U.S. Senator Tom Daschle.) They were working their butts off too. We are making a difference in how these bills get put together.
Lori Walsh:
Tell me why that was important to you. Tell me more about those defense systems.
Dusty Johnson:
Well, we need to have the best and most advanced military in the world. We spend as much as the next nine countries combined. There are times we don't get very good value for that because there is a bloated acquisition bureaucracy both in the private sector that builds this stuff as well as within government. There are times that we may need to be a little more nimble in how we go out and acquire these new systems. We want to have safeguards. We want to make sure the taxpayers' dollars are being spent well but the way some of these billion dollar decisions are made today shouldn't bring great pride to anybody.
It's a modest improvement, our bill that we got worked into the NDAA but I do think it provides for systems that are of a certain size and smaller, a more streamlined approach toward making sure that we can get the right technology in the right hands.
Does Congress have adequate checks on presidential power?
Lori Walsh:
One of the things the Democrats did not get but wanted in that authorization was a few more checks on presidential power regarding Saudi Arabia in the war against Yemen and in seeking authorization from Congress about any military action in Iran. Talk just broadly if you will about that balance of power as you see it. Congress' role generically speaking, and then the President's role generically speaking. Do you feel that there is too much strength in the White House for some of those decisions and if so, how do you correct it because correcting it always feels so partisan?
Dusty Johnson:
First, I do think — and this is not unique to President Trump — but certainly over the course of the last 30 years, we've seen more and more of an imperial presidency. Congress deserves more than its fair share of blame for that in so far as we have been unable to make important decisions. We get politically locked up. Analysis paralysis. Something's got to get done so you get presidents who fill the void.
I have been openly critical of at least the last three presidents when they've been willing to do that. When President Obama stood up and said, "Okay, Republican Congress. You won't act. Well, I've got a pen and I've got a cell phone and I'll run this country." Even if you were a big supporter of President Obama should have given you a little shiver down your spine that the checks and balances that were so carefully envisioned and crafted by our founders, was being cast aside for political expediency.
That desire to just go get it done is not unique to President Obama and it didn't end with him. There have been times when I think the President, in an attempt to try to get something done, has wanted to try to sideline Congress. He doesn't deserve as much of the blame as Congress does for that. We don't need any more power centralized in the hands of one person. Congress needs to get better at making big decisions.
Lori Walsh:
And it won't end with President Trump.
Dusty Johnson:
It won't. I am enough of a student of history where I understand that there are times when the fever does break. We had a time when vice-presidents killed secretaries of the treasury in duels. We had times where we sent to war three million of our countrymen to battle others of those three million countrymen and hundreds of thousands were slaughtered. We had times during the '60s where it seemed like we couldn't keep a political leader alive because of assassinations, when we were beating students in the street or at Kent State they were being shot by our own government. You never quite know when a more peaceful and more thoughtful time will break out. I am hopeful that Congress can get its act together and that if we start to make bigger decisions, that we'll get more of an appropriate balance.
Lori Walsh:
You never know when a more peaceful and thoughtful time will break out. That's quotable.
Dusty Johnson:
Well, yeah. It's probably not going to be this week. I know that.
Thoughts on the Afghanistan Papers and the importance of a free press
Lori Walsh:
On the topic of the National Defense Authorization Act — at the same time we have the publication of the Washington Post Afghanistan Papers. We're seeing and hearing for the first time just how broken some of the American strategy was. Many people would say this isn't the first awareness that we had. One of the main questions seems to be did the U.S. Government mislead America about the progress of the war in Afghanistan over the past 18 years to make us think that things were going better than they were. Some people say, Yes, this was misleading. Others are saying the military commanders were simply overly optimistic. They're go getters. They were mislead themselves. What's your take early on in the Afghanistan papers and the learning report. What are you learning from it?
Dusty Johnson:
Well, it was deeply disturbing, and this is going to seem like I'm pandering to professional journalist but for me it is not that we need any more evidence, but it's pretty stark evidence of why we need an even more robust independent media than we have. People are hungrier for information than they've ever been but they're not particularly inclined to pay for it. That makes the business case for how to have robust fact-gathering institutions a lot tougher to figure out.
There is a lot of political pandering that goes into trying to de-legitimize the media when they say something we don't like. Granted, there are lots of outlets out there that I don't think are as responsible today as they were 20 years ago. They are to a certain extent, some of them just responding to again, these sometimes perverse incentives we get from the marketplace. It's kind of easy to blame Congress or blame the media but at some point in general the media gives people what they want. What drives clicks.
I try to hold them to a higher standard but I really understand why that is. You don't get that kind of disclosure without a large news organization with the resources, the persistence and the independence to go make lots of very powerful people super uncomfortable. Listen, I spent 12 years in state government and I think by and large people in state government are super honest and super hard working. We, at least when I was around, made plenty of mistakes. We were a lot more likely to learn of those mistakes if we were held accountable for them by the voters who only would have known about them because of the media.
As I've seen more and more outlets pull journalists out of fear because of economic realities, that is sad to me. Even while I was chief of staff, even while they were annoying me on a daily basis with their reporting, I knew that that was not good for the citizen. The Afghanistan Papers, yes. It is super important for what they say about Afghanistan and about political leaders misleading themselves and others but to me an even bigger history is how do we come together to finance robust, independent, non-governmental reporting agencies.
How can Congress effectively address the cost of prescription drugs?
Lori Walsh:
Let's close with prescription drugs because Democrats in the House have their plan. Nancy Pelosi has her plan. Republicans have another plan. There's another plan in the Senate. Everybody agrees on one thing — it is an issue that has to be addressed. It's incredibly important to voters in 2020 but beyond that, it's incredibly important to people day-to-day. Tell me a little bit about your plan and why you think your is an effective policy.
Dusty Johnson:
Sure. It's not like I just wake up one day and say, "Well, people are uncomfortable with what they're paying for prescription drugs and that means we need a governmental solution." I don't believe in price fixing. In general people feel like they pay too much for everything. For gas, for housing, for a new jacket. That in and of itself isn't a reason to change government's approach. The problem is we pay so much more than everybody else.
Yes, those companies should have an opportunity to earn a profit. That's what makes this world work. They should have the resources they need to invest in research and development. I don't begrudge them their profits and I don't begrudge them their R&D budgets. But the totality of those dollars come from the United States of America. Most of the rest of the world is paying basically at cost for what it costs those drugs to be made.
That is not fair. They are free riding off the generosity of the American people and it is time to come to an end. There are provisions that are just indefensible. I'll give you one example that my bill would attack. Right now if you are an incumbent drug manufacturer even if you're outside of your 10-year patent production period. We need to give you 10 years to make pretty big money or otherwise you never would have invested the money to make the drug in the first place.
It costs on average a billion dollars to go develop a new drug. On average only 1 in 12 ever make it to market. You got to make money. I get it. But it is legal in the pharmaceutical industry even though it's not legal anywhere else, for you to pay a generic competitor to keep their cheap generic off the market. It's a pay for delay that is absolutely indefensible. You couldn't do that in a gas station. You couldn't do that in a grocery store. That's collusion. That's illegal.
There are some things that have very broad bi-partisan support and I'm really hopeful that in the new year ... The Speaker's plan was far more partisan. It's not going anywhere in the Senate. I'm hopeful that we're going to come together, pass HR19, the bill I introduced with a hundred of my colleagues. It will pass the Senate and the President will sign it into law.
Lori Walsh:
We could bring many people to tell their stories about the cost of prescriptions. I'd also like to share this story with people. My brother is going through a cancer battle. He stays alive for six more months, for another year, and there's a new medication waiting for him. It is not nothing that we need the innovation in drug development because there are individual lives who are being saved. I'm not excusing the cost of prescription drugs at all but it's a nuanced conversation. It's not quite as simple as just saying, "We need to get those prices down." Because when fewer drugs are coming to market, that is impacting real people's lives and those could be impacts that are life and death.
Dusty Johnson:
Well, you're exactly right, Lori, and in fact Europe, which generally gets drugs a little bit later because they don't pay what we do, the cancer survival rate for men over 50 in Europe is 46% lower than the cancer survival rate for men 50 and up in America. We're less healthy. I mean 60-year-old Americans are a lot heavier than 60-year-old Italians or French and yet our survival rate is much higher and it's the fact that we get a little something for what you pay.
Going back to Washington
Lori Walsh: :
What motivates you to go back (to Congress) after a break? Because it's nice to come home. It's nice to play football with the kids and talk to South Dakotans again. What motivates you to go back and do the people's work in Washington?
Dusty Johnson:
The idea that number one the stuff really matters and in fact it matters as much today as it ever has and that progress, we need it more today. We absolutely have to have it. When I see the kind of impact we were able to get just as a freshman minority, moving that prevent plant harvest date that we talked about. That saved some ranchers and farmers in South Dakota. Maybe had a different person been in this job. Maybe had they hired a different staff. Maybe if they didn't have as good a relationship with the Secretary of Ag, maybe that wouldn't have gotten done.
I think there are opportunities for me to be helpful in ways, dealing with China, dealing with these prescription drugs, with HR19 that I introduced. With some of the issues facing Indian Country that we've really taken an interest in. I don't think I'm perfect and there are lots of jobs I'd be terrible at. But I really believe that we are in a position and have a skill set that can make a difference that is above and beyond what many of my colleagues can. I'm going to go try and I guess we'll find out.
