And just talk a bit about how that that has been a guiding sort of North Star for your life.

Well, I have been very blessed.

And, you know, I grew up in a very loving family when I was in elementary school.

We lived in Little Colton, Washington, and I had some fantastic sisters at Guardian Angel St. Boniface School that just surrounded me with a lot of love when they were teaching.

And my mother was like that as well, too.

And, you know, as I as I as I went through school, I you know i was just drawn to doing some things that felt bigger than myself and uh one of those things when i graduated out from wash state university where my father was a professor uh i decided to go to africa for a year and do volunteer work with a group of jesuit priests so had this tremendous opportunity to live with the group of priests and teach some young africans studying to be priests but i also taught at catholic university of mozambique uh in the late 90s and that was a really a neat uh a really neat university and something that uh that every Catholic should have a lot of pride in because it was actually the Catholic church that helped end a very long and terrible civil war in Mozambique, uh, in part by establishing this new university.

And, uh, boy, you know, the, the, the refugees we worked with and the depths of poverty that they had there in Africa was a little different than what you see, uh, in a lot of places in, in, in America.

Kind of bring us through a bit of that experience and how – Again, you were really significant in helping to get the type of federal help that was needed to help Spokane in a time of really terrible emergency and tragedy.

Well, and what does it say when the center of our federal government allows foreign nationals to vote and vote legally in the d- in the district?

We saw that, you know, in the House because, uh, you know, pr- primarily the states control their elections, but, uh, the DC is a federal, uh, district, so a federal government does control the elections there.

Now, the Democrat-led city council had allowed, uh, non-US citizens to vote in their elections.

We decided that was a bad idea, uh, in the House, but only, uh, about a third of the Democrats, uh, in the House, uh, actually joined Republicans in saying, "No, we shouldn't have non-citizens voting in DC's, uh, municipal elections." So that just shows, you know, uh, the, the issue right there.

And so look, I mean, this election, we can't go back to the chaos that we saw of the Biden-Harris administration.

I mean, people put Republicans in charge to clean up the border and, uh, and to help with fentanyl.

Uh, we've done both those things.

And what do we do with this issue, and is it the kind of issue where we're gonna see electric bills push through, you know, to, to skyrocketing numbers, uh, because of data centers that people in some parts of America do not want e- in their, in their area?

And it got into quite a nasty situation in terms of the tariffs and then the export controls that the Chinese retaliated with.

I don't think there's a high degree of trust from either side.

I think what there is is a sober understanding of national interests between the two countries.

And now when it comes to the U.S., you know, we're too dependent on China right now in some key areas, critical minerals being one, some certain types of technology.

And so, you know, our national strategy is to try to make ourselves redundant and sufficient in critical areas.

I always say the best way to avoid a war with China is to prepare for war with China.

And right now we're not prepared.

I just wonder if the realities of office have had to change that for you.

What are the potential sticking points, and how bad could it be?

Well, first, it's just really important that they're meeting and, and talking.

Anytime, uh, you have, uh, leaders of countries with major nuclear arsenals, uh, that can destroy humanity, you'd like to have open and regular, uh, lines of, of conversation.

And, you know, no one should be surprised that President Trump is very, very hospitable, uh, today.

That- that's how he is, particularly when you visit the White House.

I was with him at the White House, uh, last week, and he loves to, to show it around and, and it is good personal nature.

But yeah, you're, you're very correct.

I mean, is that something that Mr. Trump is likely to, to bring up and challenge, uh, President Xi about?

So of all the things, with the economy the way it is, with inflation the way it is, with gas prices the way it is, with the war the way it is, with all the problems we're having, it feels like a cop-out to deal with what feels to me like a borderline cultural issue.

Well, you know, college sports is really important to the fabric of American life, and it really matters to universities and recruitment.

And remember, you know, this, uh, taxpayers put, uh, literally billions of dollars, uh, into highly subsidized, uh, universities.

And, uh, traditionally, uh, athletic success and participation, uh, matters to both, uh, how those universities do with recruitment, and also matters to America's sons and daughters who are graduating, uh, from high school.

So there are real big public policy impacts, uh, to this.

And right now there's a situation where you have basically the Wild West where you went from a system before the Supreme Court ruling, uh, a, a few years back where there was a controlled system, to now there's just anarchy.

And if you think about, uh, in the NFL where there are things like salary caps and competitive balance, you probably wouldn't like the NFL if the NFC East had a higher salary cap than the AFC West.

It's not changing lives the way the other issues really do impact American lives.

What does the end of the war actually look like you think?

Well, that's to be determined.

You know, we don't know if there is an Anwar Sadat type figure in Iran.

We haven't seen him yet, someone who could do the difficult things to make peace.

And of course, if you think about the process of 1973 up to 1979 and still ongoing, the peace process between Egypt and Israel took a long time and still continues to develop and may not be all the way fully in the hearts of everyone in Egypt, in Israel, but still it's a much better situation than it was when Israel and Egypt were in a perpetual state of war.

And so could something like that develop? But the key thing is that in Iran, which is not the entire Iranian people, I think most of the Persian people are actually quite compatible with the West, quite compatible with modernity, and have quite fond feelings, but really the 15 to 20% that are really hardliners, IRCG or Shia extremists, should we say, not all Shias, but this view, they can't have a nuclear weapon.

This would be so dangerous, not just to the West, or even just to Israel, but to the entire world, because these guys have been supporting terrorism, fostering terrorist attacks, chanting death to America, as we say, for nearly 50 years.

What can the United States actually learn from the region on this rather than the other way around, you think?

but if we if we go after them hard, do you want them to finish the job or do you want them to back off and give them another lane for negotiation?

Well, our first interest is making sure they don't have a nuclear weapon.

And, you know, it's good that their nuclear material is now under a mountain of dirt, but it's still there.

So our first interest is getting that material.

And the second interest would be taking away their motivation to build that material.

But that then gets into regime change.

And I think, you know, we need to see eventually, ideally, we'd see some sort of Anwar Sadat type character come to the fore in Iran.

I think they look out and see a bunch of people hostile to their adverse intent.

What are you hearing out there?

Sure, yeah.

I came into the, the conference kind of with, with two big interests.

One was, uh, about US, China, and the region, and the other are the immediate issues of Iran's, Straits of Hormuz, impacts, uh, on that.

I, I would say that China and the US was the overall dominant theme of, uh, of the conference.

We did, uh, I did ask, you know, I met with ...

And here, what happens at the conference, I should say, is it's a, it's a series of, uh, uh, both plenary sessions, where we heard, like, Secretary Hegseth made a very, uh, interesting speech, and we, you know, we might touch on difference between his speech and, uh, Secretary Rubio's speech at, at Munich, uh, differences and similars.

Just sort of give us a sense of what's going on.

I mean, it's, it's, um, it, it's thin pickings, isn't it?

Well, uh, remember, uh, during the Cold War with, uh, America and the Soviet Union, we had regular military-to-military, uh, connections all up and down the chain.

So if there was a small issue, it didn't spiral out of control.

One of the issues that we talked about on, uh, my trip to China last year, and I'm sure it was discussed this year, is that the Chinese need to establish, uh, with, with us as Americans, regular military-to-military, uh, communications.

And so I'm sure, uh, you, you say communicating is a low bar, but it's a bar that has not been met yet.

So that was a significant issue, I'm sure.

Also, w-we see a number of behaviors from China which are not responsible on the world stage, uh, starting with China's support for Russia and their war-making in Ukraine.

I mean, uh, do you think that President Trump even raised Ukraine with, with the Chinese leader?

What do you make of how things stand now? Do you think that this is a stalemate?

No, I think the world and America are much, much safer than we were two months ago.

Just the sheer devastation that our military has done in decimating Iran's navy, its ballistic missile program, its conventional forces and a number of their leaders.

And the relatively feeble response of the terrorist proxy groups, we have really set back Iran's ability to have a shield under which to produce that nuclear weapon.

And again, the analogy here is what happened in North Korea.

North Korea actually ran the same playbook, invented this playbook, where you have a really terrifying ballistic missile program that is so frightening that you can develop a nuclear weapon behind that.

And, of course, when Iran – when North Korea was developing its nuclear weapon, we were all – and Bill Clinton had this decision to make.

So I think the question is, especially after the nuclear facilities were bombed and a lot of that enrichment ability was obliterated, why did we get into this war now? Was there actually an imminent threat to the United States of Iran getting a nuclear weapon?

Would you support the president if he decides to send in boots on the ground in Iran?

We- well, certainly, uh, if there's any nuclear material, uh, out there, we need to do whatever we can to get it, and I think it's wise for the president to keep all options open.

Uh, you know, there is a potential negotiation here with the Iranian regime.

We want to have as, uh, much force threat as we can, uh, as they look at the situation.

So, uh, I think it's appropriate for our commander-in-chief not to take any options off the table.

Um, are you confident that this is just going to be a short-term mission and there is a clear exit strategy?

What I am confident of is that the American people are much safer than they were two weeks ago because, uh, this Iranian, uh, terrible regime that has been killing Americans for more than 50, or for nearly 50 years, uh, now has much less ballistic missile capability, uh, and, uh, much reduced proxy, uh, terrorist forces.

And so, you know, President Trump is someone that did what no one thought could be done in the Middle East, which was to change the paradigm.

But I mean, would you be OK with U.S. boots on the ground in Iran if that's what it comes to?

Well, look, we're going in a step-by-step process to make sure that we protect key United States interests.

And if you look at President Trump's approach, it's maximum leverage.

And right now, we are significantly degrading their ballistic missile threat.

which is step one.

Step two is we put the hammer down on their nuclear program last summer.

They immediately went back to trying to rebuild that nuclear program, so we're going to continue to make sure that's disabled.

So as a member of Congress, politics aside, what is your expectation about what a president does before they engage an enemy in any sort of military action?

I mean, was it even for the people who actually thought maybe this was a good idea? I mean, there really wasn't an indication that these goals were even plausible, right?

That's right.

It's posturing.

It allows elected officials today to go to ribbon cuttings and pat themselves on the back and demonstrate to the extreme, the small, extreme environmental base they have amongst the Democratic Party that they're a champion for them.

And look, in Washington state, Governor Gary Locke said he wanted to be the most environmentally conscious governor in our country's history.

Governor Gregoire said the exact same thing.

And then Governor Inslee was the most environmentally extreme governor.

And I was like, oh, you know, what do you think is the best outcome in this situation?