(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Support for this program is provided by the Open Discourse Coalition, providing a variety of intellectual viewpoints at Bucknell University and beyond.

(upbeat music) Senator Rick Scott of Florida shares leadership lessons, his inspiration to run for office and key issues, including his perspective on higher education and federal oversight.

The Open Discourse Coalition presents United States Senator Rick Scott, Capitalism and Capital Markets.

- Welcome.

My name is Kendy Alvarez, and I am Bucknell Alumna class of 2006.

I am an Open Discourse Coalition fellow and Mayor for the Borough of Lewisburg.

Open Discourse Coalition is an independent nonprofit dedicated to bringing opportunities for open civil discourse to higher education.

Founded in 2020, ODC has been able to bring together high quality programming because of generous support of its donors.

This afternoon has been made possible by Tony and Samantha Sposato.

While they're unable to attend, their son Finn, who is a student athlete, majoring in mechanical engineering and member of the football team, he's present with us today.

And the event co-sponsor is the Bucknell University College Democrats.

And so we'd like to thank them for their participation.

(everyone applauding) We're honored to host the United States Senator Rick Scott.

And so whether you believe with his policy positions or don't, his presence here underscores an important principle: universities must remain spaces where elected officials can engage with students and community members.

Democratic resilience depends on this exchange.

In small towns like ours, the relationship between campus and community is immediate and visible.

Faculty, staff, students, farmers, small businesses, tradespeople and public servants share not only geography, but destiny.

If universities are to serve as civic anchors, then we must create space for rigorous, respectful and sometimes uncomfortable conversations.

It is now my pleasure to introduce Alan Bazaar.

He's the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Holbrook Management.

Alan received his BA in history from Bucknell University, not that long before me, and his MBA from the Stern School of Business in New York.

He's also a Bucknell parent, and his daughter recently graduated.

Alan.

(everyone applauding) - Hello, I am Alan Bazaar.

Thank you to the ODC.

Thank you to everyone for taking time out of the middle of your Monday to be here today.

And much gratitude to Professor Gruver, who can't be here today and Charles Mitchell for inviting me here today.

Today is a huge honor for me.

Not only do I get to participate in an event at my alma mater, as you just heard, Ray Bucknell, but I get to coordinate with the ODC on this very cool event to introduce a man who I've worked for and with for over 25 years, Senator Rick Scott.

Senator Scott has not only been my boss, but outside of my father, someone I consider to be my mentor.

I cannot think of a better person to learn from at an event called Capitalism and Capital Markets.

He went from being an Eagle Scout to the Navy, to being a lawyer and making a partner at one of the best firms in Dallas, to transitioning from a practicing lawyer to becoming an entrepreneur.

And in less than 10 years, building what became, at the time, the largest healthcare company in the world.

285,000 employees, 343 hospitals, et cetera, et cetera, public company, et cetera.

To then becoming an incredible personal investor, running a family office.

To then becoming a politician where he became two-term Governor of Florida and now a two-term and senior US Senator.

He's the hardest worker I've ever been around.

Super annoying to me, I was never able to beat him into the office.

(everyone laughing) He is incredibly loyal and supportive to those around him.

And he has an uncanny superpower ability to use learnings from his past experiences and use that info to be able to see three or four moves down the proverbial chess board in whatever given situation he might encounter.

It is my hope that you can glean some of these tidbits through what I'm sure is going to be a terrific discussion between Charles and the Senator.

Please welcome Senator Rick Scott.

(everyone applauding) - That was nice.

(everyone applauding) That was nice.

Thank you, Alan.

(audience laughing) - Not every day you get an introduction like that, hey, Senator?

- No.

That's very nice.

- Well, good afternoon, everyone.

As Mal mentioned, I'm Charles, that's Charles Mitchell, class of '05, Co-Founder and CEO of the Open Discourse Coalition and Teacher this semester at Bucknell.

Delighted to have some of my students in the room.

Senator's gonna spend some time with them afterwards.

Senator, as you heard, the banner that you're speaking under is Capitalism and Capital Markets.

You started out in the projects in Kansas City.

You ran the largest healthcare company in America.

How did you make that jump?

- I had a great mom.

The most of it is actually because how I grew up.

I feel very lucky.

Never met my dad.

I never met my dad.

Actually, I have an adopted father.

And I didn't even know I was adopted.

Well, I had figured it out before they told me until I was like nine.

I'd already found my birth certificate, and I didn't look like my adopted father at all.

But my mom was tough.

And she, like Alan said, I'm an Eagle Scout.

And she said, "You're gonna be an Eagle Scout, you're gonna make straight A's, you're gonna go to work and you're gonna go to church all the time."

I mean, I told my mom, I as a kid, "I've gone to church more, Mom, than I'll never have to go to church after I leave here."

(everyone laughing) I said- - [Charles] Have you stuck to that?

- I still go to church.

(everyone laughing) - That's a good mom.

- Oh yeah, I wouldn't have won my race in 2010.

She ran a great ad, called me a good boy, so.

'Cause when I ran in the primary in 2010, I ran the Republican primary, I had zero name ID.

I found out the day after, or the week after I announced I was running, that I had to live in the state seven years.

It was my seventh year, thank God, 'cause I already spent money on the darn ads.

(everyone laughing) But, but no, I think, my mom told me, she said, "Look, you're responsible for everything that happens to you.

And there's no limit of what you can do."

And so I believed her.

I believed I could be, I don't think there's any limitation.

I try to tell that to my grandkids all the time.

The first thing I tell 'em, if they're older than seven, every time I see 'em, the first thing I say is, "Are you making money?"

I said, "I started making money when I was seven."

I had to go sell things to go to Boy Scout camp.

I sold TV guides when they were sold door to door.

And I said, "I learned how to make money."

And I always worked for some, I always had a job.

I was never, ever, ever unemployed.

And so I tell, and I think what those things she told me, that's what actually what I really believe in.

I think we all have to have, be out there doing something.

- Do you think that American dream really is available to everyone in our country, Senator?

- I think it's harder.

I ran in, so the reason I ran in 2010, so here, so I'll give you, so you guys think Florida's booming, right?

Isn't your perception?

Okay, let me... 2010, how many people you think moved to Florida?

Anybody guess?

More people left.

Between 2007, 2010.

We have really beautiful weather in Florida, right?

We have beautiful beaches, right?

How many jobs were added?

We lost 832,000.

Because the government at the time was making it very difficult for business people.

You know who creates jobs?

People who go take risk and start a company.

My nephew just called me.

He wants to start a company.

We talked to 'em all weekend about it.

But they were making it more difficult.

You couldn't, you know, if you're a business person, here's what you think.

You're sick and tired of government.

You're sick and tired of it.

Why do I have to have a permit for everything under the sun?

So my first business was a donut shop.

You know how many permits I had?

Zero.

You know how many people died from the donuts?

None.

(everyone laughing) They might not have been healthy.

But think about this.

So I ran to get our state back to work.

So I ran on a platform of 700,000 jobs.

The economists, all the economists told me, "Oh, you can never get that."

We had 10.8% unemployment.

They didn't think it'd go below 10.

What would make sure small businesses, 'cause that's the lifeblood of this country, grow?

I reduce fees, I reduce taxes, I reduce the regulatory environment.

So have you ever heard of Ave Maria University, is outside Naples, Florida?

Do you know how many permits they had to get just for the land, not to build a building?

72 permits.

City, County, Water Management District, Department of Transportation, federal.

I mean, ridiculous stuff.

I cut 20% of the regulatory environment in Florida and then I went and recruited companies.

Any of you invest, would you do this deal?

I'll give you, you give me, I guarantee you get 10 times your money and you don't have to put up the money until after you get your 10 times back.

(audience laughing) Yeah, I did it a thousand times.

I did it a thousand times as Governor of Florida.

'Cause here's the deal.

We only have two taxes in Florida.

Most states you have, your state government is funded by sales tax, property tax or income tax, right?

There's only three primary taxes, all right?

So we don't have income tax, except for corporations.

Not for LLCs, but for corporations.

So I figured out a formula.

If you added a hundred jobs, I actually knew exactly what the state would get back in sales tax.

If you built a building, I knew we'd get back in property taxes, I just gave you a cut.

Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Verizon, USAA.

So, and I just went after all these companies.

And the only thing that really fit for Florida was we're not in the right place for corporate offices unless you're Latin America based, right?

That would be Miami.

So I just went for back offices.

I went after, you know, small manufacturing, you know?

I went after aerospace and aviation.

We did a thousand projects like that.

We added 1.7 million jobs.

By the time I left, 350,000 people a year were moving to Florida.

Now, so I didn't do any of it.

I had a good legislature, and private sector did all of it.

All of our states are competing.

Pennsylvania's competing.

And if you elect people that don't care about small businesses, you elect people don't care about jobs, guess what?

You're gonna get less of it.

If you elect somebody that says, I'm gonna go figure the living daylights out how do I get more small businesses in my state, they're gonna get all the jobs.

That's what Governor should be doing.

That's what we all should be doing, so.

- Well, Senator, I think the students now understand very clearly why you're wearing jobs on your lapel.

- Number one issue.

- We're gonna talk more about Senator Scott and Governor Scott, but I wanna ask you a couple other questions about capitalist Scott.

- Yeah.

- Your jobs.

I think one of the realities of the economy that these students that you're talking to are confronting is they're likely not going to have a multi-decade job.

They're gonna have to reinvent themselves.

You have reinvent- - It's more fun.

- Well, you've done it, you've reinvented yourself many times.

So what was that process like for you to reinvent yourself in business?

- Okay, so you can do a lot of fun things, right?

And you can be, you can, you can try, like you could buy, a friend of mine's buying, had dinner with last night, he's buying a hockey team.

And so I said, "How much money does it make?"

"Well, it loses money."

I said, "I'm not doing that."

(everyone laughing) He said, "But how they've made money is there's some rich guy that's gonna pay more down the road," right?

I don't believe in that.

I think everything is tied to cash flow.

If you, like, first off, I wanted to be independent of my mom.

I hated being told what to do.

My mom was a drill sergeant, okay?

So what I learned was, if you have your own money, guess what?

You can make your own decisions.

It's the same in businesses.

What you have to think about every day is how does it make money?

And then you can basically do whatever you'd like as long as it's legal and ethical and moral, right?

So I think the big thing is, I looked at all my businesses and said, whether it was the donut shop, I tripled the revenues the first month 'cause I figured out how to do sales.

In the hospital business, I could buy hospitals for one times cash flow.

Would you buy a business and you got all your money back on one year unleveraged?

You do it every day.

I did it all the time.

We bought manufacturing companies.

So what I did was, you find, you know, but I found things I liked that I felt good about what I was doing.

And, you know, I thought I was doing good things, so.

But you've gotta, if it doesn't make cash.

Take it not-for-profit.

I was with a lady the other day, and I said, "So how do you, you know, how do you sustain yourself?"

I mean, and she's figured out that she can't keep doing what she's doing if she can't figure out how to make a profit, you have to make a profit.

And so that's what I figured, I figured out how to create cash flow.

And it's real simple, if you can't get revenues, it's over.

If you can't get revenues, okay, and then have a cost structure that's way below that, I mean, then you're, you know, you're gonna go bankrupt eventually.

It's just when you do it.

So I just figured out how to, I figured out how to get a return on investment.

So it's fascinating.

When I became Governor, so they were spending money on, I mean, you wouldn't believe all these projects, all these things, right?

There was no concept of did we get anything for it?

So there's 4,000 lines of the budget.

I took every line and had a written purpose.

So let's take autistic, right?

We should help, you know, we've got an autism problem.

We got a lot of autistic kids in the country, right?

So we have all these programs.

Was anybody measuring if they were successful?

No, we felt good because we spent the money.

BS.

That's not how you spend the money.

So I had a written purpose.

You said you're gonna do this.

If you didn't do it, I vetoed your money the next year.

Guess what?

People started doing their job.

Shocking.

And we started putting programs together.

So, but I think it comes down, you gotta do something you really have a passion about.

And then if you can't generate cash flow, you're not gonna do it for long.

- What were some of the lessons you learned in your business career, Senator?

We can say how fun it is to be in business, but there are hard things that come along, and some students are gonna experience that.

- Okay, how many of you, so how many of you like to fire people?

Nobody.

And if you do, you sit down with anybody that works for you.

So that's the worst part of it.

But you do have to hold people accountable.

Now you can make it easier on yourself.

What you learn pretty quickly is you set all, you tell people very clearly what your expectations are.

So you didn't fire them, they fired themselves.

And you just keep telling 'em every day, this is what the expectations are.

So if you are not willing to do that, then you're not gonna be successful.

Number one, if you can't hold yourself accountable, you're not gonna be successful.

If you're not willing to hold people accountable, hold yourself accountable, it's over.

You're not gonna get anywhere.

And then you've gotta live up to every expectation.

You're gonna need borrowers or lenders.

You're gonna need investors.

You're need people that come work for you.

If you're not, and you know, if you're not somebody that people wanna work for, it's hard to be a one man show and get very far.

And then you're gonna have to probably borrow money.

You gotta go build all those relationships.

But it's a ball to try it.

But what I did was, I guess what I did was I just, I found things I liked and I went after 'em.

Like when I ran for Governor, everybody said I was gonna lose.

I ran the Republican primary and every Republican in the state told me to get outta the race.

That was fun.

But I won.

- Why did you decide to make the jump from capitalist Rick Scott to Governor Rick Scott?

- Because I believe, like, I think what we've done is we've hurt poor families, their ability to get ahead.

I think we've decimated their ability to get ahead in this country.

I think it's way harder, I think it's even harder if you, I think probably the hardest group to get ahead is a black male teenager, 'cause we made it too difficult.

We have this rule and that rule and that rule.

I mean, how in, I mean how, like when I became Governor, you had to get a state permit if you want to install computers in a house.

Gimme a break.

I could never get this fixed till you have the power of the governor.

You still have to have the state license to be a hair weaver in Florida.

I mean, not an issue for me, but.

(everyone laughing) But you think about what we've done for poor people to get ahead.

Like, I was able to get started with no permits.

Today, I mean, you violate every rule and regulation there is and then somebody come in and scream at you and find you and all this stuff.

So I ran because if people start getting more jobs, we need more jobs in this country.

We need more opportunities for everybody.

And so, you know, and I believe all of it's tied to business.

And the limitation in business is not money.

The limitation in business is not people.

the limitation in business is one thing, government.

Government is the limiting factor in almost the success of all businesses.

Now, there's things that government should do.

We need to have the rules of the road, we need to antitrust, things like that.

But let people go compete.

That's gotta be fair.

But let 'em go compete.

Don't tell me.

Like, think about this.

So when I was in the hospital business, 41, I don't know if it was, it's been a while back, but something like 40 states had limited laws.

And I think you do in Pennsylvania, you can't build a new hospital without state approval.

Now think about it.

You can go out a new restaurant and compete.

You add new gas station, you can had all these other businesses, but God forbid you can't open the hospital to go compete.

Why?

It makes no sense.

So if I have a better idea that I can provide better care at a better price with better outcomes, I can't do it with if I don't spend millions of dollars.

And would take millions of dollars to get a CON in a typical state.

How does that make sense?

So we have all sorts of the... And by the way, here's what you'll learn.

If you're the governor of a state, you'll learn really quickly.

The business people love you, the big businesses, they love you.

"And I think, Governor, you should regulate that and you should tax that, and you should tax that."

People come to me all the time, and they said, "You know, you should really regulate our industry more."

All the time.

- Why?

Why do they do that, Senator?

That sounds counterintuitive.

- Stop competition.

- They want you to regulate their competitors basically.

- Yeah, so yeah, so nobody else will come into the business.

It's like, think about it, if you're the only hospital in town, you think your prices are gonna be lower?

No.

You think you're the only restaurant in town, you think your prices will be lower?

No.

You guys are all gonna be creative.

Somebody's gonna figure out a better idea for something.

Have at it.

And if you could, like I told people when I was in my business, "If you have a better idea, okay, go compete and I'll see if I can beat you."

Here's what's going on right now.

So how many of you, you know what stable coin is?

Okay, you guys follow Bitcoin now we have stable coin.

Okay, if you have stable coin, you don't get paid interest do you?

Why?

Because of banks.

- [Charles] Because they wanna block out competitors.

- They wanna block, they don't want... Because here's what happened.

You'll go put your money in a stable coin, because eventually, it'll be easier to transact and cheaper than going through using the credit card or through a wire, right?

And so, but, and you might not have put your money in the bank.

- I asked you why you ran for office.

You're a successful white guy.

And you said, "Because I don't think people who don't look like me have a chance."

- Right.

- I suspect, there are preconceived notions in life, right?

I suspect somebody Googled you or I don't know if they Google anymore, ChatGPT-ed you, whatever.

I suspect they didn't anticipate that answer.

You've been talking about limiting government, jobs, et cetera.

Go a level deeper.

If that's your goal, if your goal is to help people be able to make that jump that you made from the projects, really, you're a Republican, you're a conservative?

Is that really the way to unlock that opportunity?

Why isn't it government grants?

Why isn't it something else?

- Well, I mean there's things government could do.

I mean, I'm not, I mean we need to have safety nets and things like that, right?

We've gotta, like I grew up, I fought against Hillary care, which is probably why I got investigated when I was running my hospital company 'cause Hillary didn't like that.

I fought against Obamacare, 'cause here's the deal.

Government, you should, I did a documentary, which I don't know if you can ever find it, but I did a documentary in the British and Canadian system.

Government restricts healthcare.

That's what they do.

We need to have safety nets.

But when they make things so expensive, do you think we get more of it or less of it?

- [Audience Member] Less.

- We get way less of it.

And so I want more.

So I think if you wanna help, you know, the poorest families, give them a chance, give 'em a good education and unlock the opportunity.

Don't restrict their ability to do things by some stupid fee or some stupid tax or some stupid permit or some stupid regulation that we don't need.

We don't need more of those.

We're smart.

We're not a bunch of, like my dad, my adopted dad had a sixth grade education.

He was one of the most well read people.

He's a war here.

There's only 3000 Americans that did all four combat jumps with a second airborne in the Second World War.

And he fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

And he was treated like crap his whole adulthood because he never made $10,000 a year in his life.

He was not stupid at all.

He was smart.

He just didn't figure out how to make money.

I want people like that to have a better opportunity to get ahead, so.

And, you know, I actually think the rich are gonna be fine.

I think what we need to do is help the poor through, give them the opportunity to be independent.

They need jobs, they need opportunity.

They need to get outta their way, Golly.

They're so entrepreneurial.

- Senator, last year, one of your colleagues was here, Senator Rand Paul.

He's very outspoken about the Constitution.

Some of your colleagues right now are saying that what our country has done with Mr.

Maduro, taking him out in Venezuela, and then this weekend in Iran is unconstitutional.

What say you?

- That's not true.

That's not true.

Well, first off the Maduro's operation, he was indicted.

He was indicted in 2020.

That was arrested and indicted person, so.

And he should have been arrested.

And Cabello is also should have been arrested, but they didn't get it at the time.

So that was clearly a law enforcement operation.

with regard to Iran, the president is commander in chief.

Every president since Truman has said the president has a right for military action without a formal declaration of war.

On top of that, if this president didn't do it, I think he would be derelict in his duty.

They were building a hundred missiles a month.

They were planning on attacking our troops in the Middle East and Israel.

And if they could get a long range missile, they would attack us.

The president did the right thing.

And the world's a safer place.

That Maduro's in prison right now in New York waiting trial.

And the Itril is dead.

I don't usually, you don't usually welcome death, but that guy, just think about, he probably just in the last month killed somewhere, the estimates are somewhere between 10 and 35,000 people in his own country.

So, it's just death and, all that guy was is death and destruction.

- Four more for you, Senator, and then it's the student show.

You're a senator from Florida, why come to a university in Pennsylvania today?

- You know, I think it, I think it's important to get around and hear what people are saying.

If you're not talking to people, you know, you don't know what's on their mind.

I've probably shaken hands in the last, I've been in politics for, this is my 16th year, I've probably shake hands with 800,000 people, mostly in Florida.

And I use pre-roll, so if you're worried.

(everyone laughing) But you hear stories, you hear their stories and what they care about.

Like I went to an event on Friday night over in Palm Beach.

It was really a, it was a fundraiser for preserving the community.

But I got a lot of feedback from a lot of people, so.

Especially on immigration.

I had one guy talk to me for at least 30 minutes.

(audience laughing) - Senator, what is is some- - I generally agree with him, so.

- What is is some really influential advice that you received in your life?

- So, I think my mom telling me that, "Everything is your life."

So, you know, you gotta take charge of your life.

And then when I, you know, the guy told me this when I first got elected as Governor, he was an outgoing Governor from Vermont.

And he said, "You cannot solve a problem people don't believe it's a problem."

He said, "So if they don't believe it's a problem, you're wasting your time to try to solve it.

Then when you do, you need to go tell people you solved it."

That actually was so was, I think that was, that was very helpful advice.

And then the other thing, you know, Jeb Bush, he told me the most important thing, like, we have hurricanes in Florida.

He said, "Show up."

I had four major hurricanes.

And so we got, I just tried to keep everybody alive, but he said, "Show the heck up."

So I think those are probably some of the best advice I've gotten.

- That's great.

Two more.

What's a great book you recommend to our listeners?

So I think the "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

I think that I've probably given 'em out five or 10,000 copies of that.

So I've given out that, I've given out a lot of the book called "The Goal."

I think it's Eli Gold.

He just talked about you have to be very goal-oriented to get anywhere in life.

I think there was a book, what's the one, on "Power of Habits."

- Who is your favorite world historical figure?

- I think there's two, Margaret Thatcher and Mandela, for different reasons.

Mandela, because here's a guy that was treated like dirt, right?

Put in prison for what, 26 years?

And he came out without revenge.

So that was pretty remarkable that somebody can do that.

Not everybody can do that.

The other one would be Margaret Thatcher.

Because what she did, she took a country in malaise where there was less and less opportunity and she turned it around.

- Wonderful.

Well, thank you, Senator.

And now you're gonna get what you came for.

You're gonna hear what these people out here were concerned about and wanna hear about.

So ladies and gentlemen, you can see Jack and Dawn here have microphones.

Please approach them.

The Senator's a friendly guy, so please introduce yourself to the Senator and ask him whatever you wanna ask him.

Please don't make a speech.

That's why he's here.

And we'll go from there.

So, and students have priority.

- Actually when I do TV appearance, I usually ask them, just ask me the question, I'll give you the answer.

A lot of times they wanna gimme the answer also.

(audience laughing) - [Charles] Okay, Jack, ladies first.

- [Scott] Hi.

- Good afternoon, Senator.

My name is Katie Fitzgerald, and I'm a senior history major, and I'm the president of Bucknell College Democrats.

Given the current contentious political climate, what is your recommendation to rebuild bipartisan cooperation and respect?

- Most of it's talk to people.

- [Charles] You seem to be living that out, Senator.

- I'll give you a story.

And here's why I think it's the way it is.

I think first off, a lot of people don't talk to each other.

So like, I'm the chair of the Aging Committee.

Senator Gillibrand is the Democrat and she's great.

Tonight I'm having dinner with Mark Warner, a democrat from Virginia.

So that you need to do that.

But I'll tell you why you're, I tell you why at the federal level.

'Cause it wasn't like that when I was Governor.

When I was Governor, every Republican, every Democrat was invited to the mansion.

They had dinner in the mansion, they come to my office any day they want, all right?

So you should elect people like that, all right?

And they all didn't agree with me.

So but here's why I think federal politics are messed up.

It's about money.

So in a federal race, so you can give me, if I was running, you could write me a check for $7,000 as an individual, okay?

But you can give a super PAC, $20 million if you had it.

So if you're gonna get, so here's the way the Senate and the House work, whoever the speaker is and the majority leader in the Senate, they decide what we vote on.

The Republican-Democrat leader in the House and Republican-Democrat leader in the Senate, each half super PACs.

Guess how much?

Four to 500 million.

So just take the Senate for example.

If you run, so like you just had you, so I would guess, I don't know, but Dave McCormick just ran here, right?

And Federman ran two years ahead.

Probably, they raised max 15 to $20 million net for their campaign.

These outside PACs, at least spend a hundred million dollars each side.

After they spend money for you, are you gonna vote against them?

Oh, you probably have a race coming up.

So what happens is we've put all the power in the leadership.

So that's what our campaign finance laws.

It sounds good.

We've gotta limit how much money goes into politics, right?

No, there's never a limit.

And so I think that's what caused it.

You've gotta get both, you know, you gotta get both sides work together because some are, you know, it's like it's life.

Some people are more engaged in the policy stuff.

Like whether you agree with Elizabeth Warren, she likes policy, right?

She does.

Whether you agree with Senator Gillibrand, she likes policy.

There's other people, I won't name their names, I don't know why they're there.

(audience laughing) I could say Republicans too, so it's not just Democrats.

- Equal opportunity.

Thanks, Senator.

Next question.

- Thanks.

- Hi.

Yeah, thank you for coming to speak to us today and coming to Bucknell campus.

This has been great.

My name is Sam DeLuca.

I'm a senior economics major.

I'm an intern at the Open Discourse Coalition and I'm also an intern at the Charles Koch Foundation.

It's now called Stand Together.

So my question is centered around tariffs.

Right-leaning economists have historically been pre, or pro free trade, I'm an anti-tariff since after World War II.

So as a capitalist and a Republican senator, what is your opinion on their tariffs and how they affect American businesses?

And also where does Trump's tariffs and broader economic policies take the political rite after Trump is gone?

- Sure.

Okay, so tariffs and political rite, okay.

So, first on tariffs.

So I believe in free trade.

But that'd be fair.

So, you know, how many American cars are sold in Japan?

- Zero.

- Zero.

- Zero.

It's not free trade.

But can they sell Japanese cars in this country?

- [Audience Member 2] Yes.

- That's not free trade.

that's not free, it's free for them.

But our workers get screwed.

Let's make it real free trade.

So I was in my job, I travel around the world.

So I was in Denmark, Finland and Estonia right after Trump got reelected.

And so they said, "Tell us about Trump."

I said, "Well, the first thing is I would spend money for your own defense instead of expecting America to pay for your defense.

And number two, I'd open up your markets.

I would put no, if you don't want a limitation on your workers to sell stuff in our country, don't have limitation on yours."

So I had a friend call me, who's probably the biggest employer in Vietnam, right after Trump got elected.

And he says, "I'm worried about tariffs in Vietnam."

I said, "Well, why don't you go talk to the government and eliminate all the barriers to entry?"

Okay, did any of these countries do it?

Not one of 'em.

So what the prisons walked into is a time where you think about what's happened in this country.

So I used to own manufacturing companies, okay?

And my competition was cheap, crummy Chinese stuff.

Our government has allowed the rest of the world to take our jobs.

So the tariff is, so if you look at where Trump is, Congress is not gonna do anything.

We're not doing our job.

Our job should say, you know, it ought to be fair.

But we've allowed this to happen.

China does not act fairly.

They steal everything.

They lie about everything.

They don't comply with any free trade agreements, nothing.

They've never complied with the WTO.

Nothing, right?

So I don't like tariffs.

But do I appreciate that Trump's trying to bring jobs back and the only mechanism he has is tariffs?

Absolutely.

So until we start doing our, and until Congress starts doing our job and we start holding other countries accountable, it's the only thing we got.

So with regard to what's gonna happen after Trump, you guys decide, look, people get elected because they fit the time.

Trump got elected because he responded to the issues of the time, okay?

The issue of the time.

We had open borders.

Our country was not generating jobs.

By the way, how many full-time jobs were a added under the Biden years?

Four years.

We lost every year millions under Biden.

We know we added part-time jobs, and then they redid the numbers the next month.

So if you go back and look, they would say, oh, we added 200,000 jobs.

Yeah, we added 300,000 part-time jobs and lost a hundred thousand full-time jobs.

How's that good for the country?

It's horrible.

So I think elections come down to these things.

Who's gonna be best for getting me a job?

You guys all want jobs or you guys wanna be dependent on somebody else?

I want a job, right?

So you want a job.

And when you have kids, you're worried about their education, and we wanna be safe.

Part of that state, part of that's local, part of that state, and part of that's federal.

So I think whoever deals with issues at the time, I think it's always gonna be the economy though.

- [Liv] Hello, Senator.

Good afternoon.

- Hi.

- My name is Liv Prince.

I'm an animal behavior research major here at Bucknell.

Now, Florida's a very significant state industry-wise, with several major highly populated cities, but it's also a very important state environmentally wise, with the Everglades and other similar very important habitats present in the state.

Now, my question was, what are your thoughts on balancing those two things, especially since you've talked about rescinding some restrictions and making it easier to get around permits for businesses?

- So the big environmental issues in our state, so the biggest probably when I was Governor is, the biggest as far as money is the Everglades, all right?

The Everglades were originally were supposed to be, it was just, it was never supposed to be where they built all these canals and push the money out, the money, the water out to the East and West Coast.

The West Coast through the Caloosahatchee River, the east coast through a bunch of canals.

But that's what they did in the early 1900s.

So what we did was you can't go back and change that, so what we did is we invested, number one, there were two federal lawsuits for four federal agencies when I got elected.

And we were spending millions of dollars, and it was over nutrients.

And so I sat down with, I had to go negotiate with DOJ, this was under Obama, DOJ, EPA, Corps of Engineers and Interior.

And if it wasn't for the Interior secretary, it never would happen because they would not even meet together.

They all worked for the same president, but the four people who run those wouldn't even meet together.

So, we negotiated that to improve.

Then we had the whole plan.

It cost about $880 million to do nutrient.

Then we added storm treatment areas to hold the water and clean the water as it flows south.

And then if you know much about the Everglades, they kill the Bay of Florida as it goes south towards like to key western stuff.

So we raised the Highway 41 so the water could flow under so you get water out there because it just killed it.

So yeah, what you've gotta do is you, and by the way, you can't do it without a good economy.

I was able to do it because my state revenues grew from my first year in office.

And then think about it, I cut taxes a hundred times.

I cut taxes and fees all these different ways.

My revenues went from 70 million to 88 million or billion.

And so I had more money for education, for transportation, for the environment, all these things.

So you've gotta do both.

You've gotta build your economy and you gotta take care of the environment, but you can't take care of the environment if you don't build the economy.

And by the way, my belief is government's horrible at protecting land.

The private sector does a better job at protecting land.

But you've gotta do both.

You gotta grow your economy, you gotta have revenues and you gotta spend it, right?

And spend it on things where you get something done.

You know what, when I was before I was Governor of what they did, oh, always just buy up more land.

But yeah, but okay, are you gonna make any better?

In the storm treatment areas, make it better 'cause you clean all the water.

We cleaned the Caloosahatchee.

I had to fix all the dike all around.

I actually got, that's a federal project.

When Trump got first elected, I went to see him.

I said, "I've put up a hundred million dollars, it takes another $700 million.

It's your project."

And I said, "Will you fund it?"

He said, "Yes."

I said like, "Do you wanna talk to somebody else before you agree?"

He said, "No, I think you're right."

I got it done.

So that allowed us to raise the water levels, so now we can hold the water, and the Caloosahatchee, are the Okeechobee cleans it naturally.

So it's worked.

- Senator, follow- - You gotta do both.

- Follow up question on that.

Some of the students in my class have studied issues like this.

Is it a contradiction for a conservative to be a conservationist?

- No, I mean, that's what you should be.

I mean, by the way, you don't have, if you're not, you don't have any money.

Like, do you think Putin is much a of environmentalist?

How many of you think?

No.

You need to be a capitalist.

You need to grow an economy.

You know, there's a good book.

Have you had Alex Epstein "Fossil Future"?

It's a good book about if you think about why do you want, you know, cheap energy?

Because you care about poor people being able to get healthcare.

Do you think of if the energy's not cheap, they're gonna get as good healthcare?

No.

- Good afternoon, Senator Scott.

Thank you for being here today.

My name's Kayla Becker.

I'm a first year student here at Bucknell studying education and management.

As a low-income first generation college student, I can really relate to your story and kind of the notion that Americans, regardless of their background, should have a chance to succeed here.

In your opinion, how can state governments better help students at the primary and secondary levels of education be prepared for their futures and succeed beyond graduation?

- So, number one, in K-12, what we did was we pretty much had complete school choice, so.

Because it's actually not the school's money, it's the parents' money.

So the way our schools are funded in Florida, we fund by students.

So our school districts are by county.

And so the dollars went, same dollar per student for every county, right, so.

And then what we did was we created vouchers now so the parent can take it and their student can take it and spend it at different, pick their school.

So I think that's number one.

And then the parent will make a better choice of making sure that their kid is getting educated.

So that's number one.

Number two, the universities, and I did this when I became Governor.

I think about higher ed in this way, what's gonna cost me?

Okay, do I get a job?

How much money I make?

Right?

So I changed the formula on how the schools were reimbursed to tie those three things.

It was 10 points, but it was basically those three things.

Guess what?

By the time I left, we had the lowest tuition in the country.

I stopped all tuition increases.

We were number one higher education because we measured every school and they had to compete for the money.

So I put up a pot of state money of, it's, I think it was $580 million.

And one of our 12 universities could get as much as a hundred million dollars.

So it was a big deal, they competed.

People started graduating on time.

They got jobs.

They started worried about these kids getting jobs and how much money they make.

As you tell, I believe everything is tied to being able to get a job.

- Thank you, Senator.

My name's Pierce Hoffer.

I'm the president of Turning Point Bucknell.

- I used to do, I did Charlie's podcast every Monday.

I was on his podcast two days before he got shot.

We were talking about going to universities.

- [Pierce] I've seen your episodes.

- That's horrible what happened to Charlie.

- I'm also fortunate to have a number of friends a lot smarter than I am.

A lot of them are engineers.

For instance, I have a friend at Notre Dame.

He has his master's in hypersonics aerospace engineering.

Since the start of the year, he's applied to 78 jobs.

What would you say to young men like my friend and a lot of men in similar, a lot of young Americans in similar situations who apply to jobs and then see news like Boeing laying off thousands or tens of thousands of workers and then applying for thousands of immigrant worker visas?

What would you say to young Americans concerned that they feel they're being undercut by foreign labor?

- Well, first off, our entire immigration system has to be revamped.

So we ought to, one, protect American jobs.

Number one.

You know, no one has a right to come into this country.

This is our country.

You don't have a right to come in here.

We do like immigration.

I'm from a state that we have a lot of immigrants.

And I'm pro-immigration, but everybody ought to be vetted.

And we should bring people in that add to the value of our country, that don't wanna become dependent on government, but want to build businesses or if, you know, things like that.

So I think what the first thing we ought to do is we ought to say with regard to immigration, what background do we need for people to come in?

And if you don't fit that you don't come in.

It ought to be completely merit-based and that way we'll get more American jobs.

But we also, for your friend, we gotta stop, you know, every one of you is a buyer, okay?

You're impacting American jobs.

When you buy stuff from China, you're impacting an American job.

You should stop buying anything from China, period.

Nothing.

We will get more American jobs.

First off, they wanna demolish our way of life.

The Chinese, not the Chinese people, but the Chinese government wants to demolish our way of life.

So you should start wherever you buy, if you're gonna buy stuff on Amazon, say, I'm not buying anymore your stuff unless you start telling me where it's made.

Like, if you care about your friends' jobs, stop buying stuff in other countries.

Help people in this country first.

I think like, you know, I hopefully all try to do this.

I live at Naples, Florida, so I try as much as possible, help a local business and then help the people in the state.

So, but let's help people in this country.

So a lot of it is, we've outsourced so much stuff.

It's foolish.

- Yeah.

- Hi, my name's Kathleen Adams.

I'm a physician here in the Lewisburg community.

And I'm a class of 2001, graduate of Bucknell.

And I have a question.

As you were just talking a bit about immigration, I'd like you to comment a bit more.

22% of entrepreneurs are foreign-born individuals, and 40% of Fortune 500 companies are related to foreign-born individuals.

And as a physician, this is particularly salient to me because a lot of my colleagues are foreign-born.

And I'm concerned about the current- - A lot of your nurses are foreign-born.

- A lot of our nurses, a lot of our home health workers, right, who are caring for older individuals in our community.

- Our biggest issue in Florida right now is the Haitians.

- Right.

And so I'm hoping you can comment on how the current administration's policies on immigration are impacting the movement of people into our country to work in these industries.

- So here's actually think about what's happening.

I doubt that many people in this room are anti-immigrants, right?

Then let's fix our immigration policy.

So you are right.

The people that wanna come in and have jobs that there not enough Americans of those jobs, wanna be entrepreneurs, they should come in.

But who shouldn't come in, are people that wanna do harm to our citizens, are people that wanna come in and say, I don't wanna work, I just want that free safety net that the United States has.

That's not fair.

You guys want pay higher taxes?

No.

So we have to fix it.

But I'll give you a story.

So I have a lot of immigrants in my state.

20% of my state speak Spanish.

(Scott speaking in Spanish) - So, so we have Haitians, we have a lot of Haitians.

Have you got, you probably have never had to deal with TPS, Temporary, Temporary Temporary Protective Status.

You have an earthquake in your country, you don't have to go back until after they've dealt with fixing it, okay?

That doesn't mean you get to come here forever, right?

So guess what?

We've had people here under TPS, I think for 25 years.

That's not temporary.

So I went I took an idea, I got all the Republicans on board.

I was a brand new Senator.

It's something the Democrats wanted to do to fix TPS.

Bob Menendez blocked me twice in the Senate.

To try to fix it so the TPS would work.

So when I got up there, I've been up seven years, I've been supportive of DACA kids, right?

We got a lot of DACA kids in my state.

I mean, they didn't come here, they might have come here illegally, but guess what?

They didn't make that decision.

Their parents did, right?

So, it was during the, I wound up there in January, 2019.

We're in shutdown.

So Trump signed off on doing DACA.

And Schumer said that's not enough.

We need something more than that.

We could have fixed the DACA thing right then.

'Cause what Obama did was not constitutional.

Executive orders are not part of the Constitution.

If you read the Constitution, have you seen the part where they say the president gets to do executive orders?

No.

All presidents keep doing it though, right?

So the, so, you know, so it's frustrating because we could fix this stuff.

And there's so many wonderful people.

And we ought to, so I read an article on immigration the other day.

It said, so, you know, people say, well, you should have to the back of the line.

They said, yeah, but there ought to be a line.

There's no line right now.

I mean, how do you get in here other than illegally?

It's hard.

- What do you believe the role of the federal government is in the economic conversation?

And what prompted you to run for Senate in 2018 in Florida and run for Senate majority leader last year?

And where do you think the government should come into the economic conversation?

- So number one, I think, one, the federal government needs to balance its budget.

So we can't keep... We've had a 2% increase in population in the last six years and over a 50% increase in spending.

So that's causing this inflation.

I don't, you know, I know inflation has come down and I think we're doing a lot of good things, but I think a lot of it is that.

And the federal government's gotta get out of doing it all these different things and focus on what should do.

It should have great defense and make sure we have a great economy.

And it should, you know, achieve partisan safety nets.

But get out outta the rest of it.

- Okay, last question, Senator.

By the way, that's not a walkout.

That's people that are late for one o'clock classes.

And they start late, so.

- Sorry.

- Last question.

Sir.

- Hi, I'm Rufuss.

I'm a senior here at Bucknell studying political science and history.

I'm the Vice President of the College Democrats.

My question about healthcare, we have a massive problem in this country where people are going into massive debt trying to fix what should be routine issues, you know, cancer, whatnot.

How do we get fixing that?

- So, it's really important to me.

My brother had a disease as a kid, and my parents didn't have any health insurance.

They couldn't find anybody to take care of him for free so they found a hospital four hours away to take care of him.

So I think it's important.

If you think about, the problem with healthcare is the delivery cost is too expensive.

Now, part of that is because we have Certificate of Need laws and things like that and don't allow competition.

And then government has created the adverse incentives.

So if you remember Obamacare, I fought Obamacare, but the promise was that every family would save $2,500.

Well, that was a complete lie.

Prices probably, this'll be off, but it's probably now the cost of health care's probably doubled since then.

The copayments are up, the deductibles are up.

By the way, if you go back in 2009 when Obamacare, whenever, or in 2009 and '10, a catastrophic plan had a $3,000 deductible.

I think an Obama plan today has an $8,000 deductible on average.

So people are, and then you're supposed to keep your doctor, you couldn't, keep your plan, you couldn't.

So here's the only solution.

The only solution is, one, allow the consumer.

So if we're gonna support, which we have, you know, we have to support, people can't afford, give them the cash in a health savings account and let them buy the insurance they want, the copayment deductibles or direct healthcare.

And let the rest of the market compete, right?

So you have the safety net, but you don't have a safety net run by insurance companies in big government.

Allow that to be run by the consumer.

- Senator, thank you so much for making the journey to Bucknell.

Thanks, everybody.

(everyone applauding) So we have one comment from you and then I'll close.

Go.

So if you need something, I'm a full service Senator, Alan's got my number.

You can call me.

Or if you're in DC you wanna come by, call me.

I don't care.

And, you know, if it's, I represent you.

My primary job is represent the people of Florida.

But there's a lot of federal issues that I represent you.

So if you need something, call me.

- Thank you so much, Senator.

Now in gratitude for the Senator's coming, he mentioned in his early business career, he had donuts.

You're gonna exit this way for security reasons.

When you exit, thanks to our generous sponsors, everyone will receive a donut at the door.

(audience laughing) I hope that you've enjoyed the fact that we now have had two United States Senators here in Lewisburg in one year.

On behalf of the Open Discourse Coalition, we're gonna keep it going.

Thank you so much.

(audience applauding) - Okay.

- Thank you.

- [Announcer] Support for this program was provided by the Open Discourse Coalition, providing a variety of intellectual viewpoints at Bucknell University and beyond.