The Pilgrim Political Involvement Club got the kind of political experience you’re only likely to get in Rhode Island – as they got to fire off questions face-to-face with junior U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who stopped by the club for close to an hour Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s always more fun to have a conversation than giving speeches,” Whitehouse said to the small gathering of students who attended.

Covering everything from the political climate in D.C. to environmental concerns occurring in Narragansett Bay, Whitehouse delved into detailed answers prompted from students by their questions. As the club’s mission is to discuss current events, the conversation started with a question regarding the caravan of displaced migrants moving through Central America and seeking refuge in the U.S.

Whitehouse said that the topic is an example of how President Donald Trump utilizes crises occurring in the world for political motivations, and how Republican lawmakers who have tried to work on bipartisan solutions to immigration have been branded as traitors who wish to give illegal immigrants amnesty behind their back by the administration.

“Often in politics you can get a lot done when people of good will and good intentions get together and want to create a solution,” Whitehouse said. “Unfortunately, I think the president is more interested in weaponizing this issue for political purposes than he is in trying to find solutions.”

Pilgrim Political Involvement president Zachary Lafontaine brought up the issue of gun violence and asked if efforts to introduce gun control legislation had been indefinitely halted, since not much has been heard of the issue lately.

“It’s been sidelined for now. There’s a whole suite of issues that fall into this category,” Whitehouse said. “If there is a monopoly on power in Washington by one party, the issues that that party does not want to bring up really never see the light of day, because they control what gets brought up. So, you can carve out an issue like gun control and just never address it. Climate change is another one, dark money is another one.”

Still, Whitehouse said that there was a good possibility of a common sense gun safety bill passing if Democrats take back either the House or the Senate in the upcoming midterm elections. “I think it’s doable,” he said. “There’s lots of stuff I think is pretty straightforward and would have bipartisan support.” He mentioned high capacity magazines and closing loopholes around background checks as two potential areas of compromise.

The conversation switched to the hearings held by the Senate Judiciary Committee – of which Whitehouse is a member – where Whitehouse got the chance to ask now-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh questions during an investigation into alleged sexual assault against Dr. Christine Blasey Ford which allegedly occurred in 1982.

Whitehouse lamented that the investigation put forward by the White House utilizing the FBI was merely a “background investigation,” rather than a criminal one, meaning the agency was acting purely at the behest of the wishes of the federal government.

“They were directed to run a very narrow and ineffectual investigation, and so that’s what we got – a very narrow and ineffectual investigation,” Whitehouse said, indicating that party politics played a clear role in how narrow the scope of the investigation was allowed to be.

When asked if Kavanaugh could potentially be removed from his seat, Whitehouse said it could only likely occur if it was revealed Kavanaugh gave a prosecutable false statement to the committee or the FBI. He complimented Dr. Ford and Deborah Ramirez for coming forward with their stories, and that for victims of sexual assault it is vitally important to, at the very least, hear out their stories.

“Neither of these women had that respect shown to them, and I think that’s a misdeed of the Senate that needs to be made right. But you don’t want to make it right against the will of the victim herself,” he said. “To the extent that they, as victims of sexual assault and harassment, have come forward and want an investigation, an investigation is what they should have.”

Moving back to the international scale, Whitehouse answered a question about the USMCA – The United States, Mexico, Canada Agreement – the trade deal Trump brokered with Mexico and Canada that has been billed as a replacement to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was entered into in 1994.

“Its nickname in the Senate is NAFTA 1.1, not even 2.0, because it’s still basically NAFTA,” Whitehouse said. He said that a positive outcome from the agreement was making Canada exempt from the ISDS (investor-stare dispute settlements) clause of the agreement, which enables investors of companies to bring suit against countries who enact policies harmful to their business practices.

“The bad end of that program is having the international tobacco industry suing the tiny country of Togo on the African coast for hundreds of millions of dollars because they are putting warnings on how fatal tobacco is on cigarettes sold in Togo,” Whitehouse said. “If you’re the Togolese, you don’t have lawyers and money to respond to an industry as big as the international tobacco industry, so they end up caving and throwing in the towel on their safety measures for their people.”

Whitehoue also praised the inclusion of provisions to protect the oceans from plastic debris by the Mexican government as a positive of the agreement.

On the topic of oceans, Whitehouse said that the Trump administration has been far more harmful than helpful, however. As a member of the Environment and Pubic Works Committee, Whitehouse said he has taken notice of how Trump has only been stopped in attempts to undermine environmental protections by those in elected and administrative roles who seek to prevent such actions.

“It’s been a rear guard action fighting against various assaults on environmental laws, and it’s been a pretty successful rear guard action,” he said. “Problem is, we’re in a world right now where we need to be making progress, not playing good defense.”

He related another local story to illustrate the recent environmental impacts being seen across the world, speaking of a species of winter flounder that his wife was studying as part of her doctoral studies at URI. The flounder would feed on a species of shrimp in Narragansett Bay waters during the winter, providing a valuable resource for fishermen during an otherwise tough season for viable catch.

“I remember driving over the Newport Bridge and the Jamestown Bridge and seeing trawlers at work in the Bay. Since then, that is all gone,” he said. “Her research is essentially useless because the waters of Narragansett Bay have changed so much that all of the conditions that supported the winter flounder and created that engagement with the sand shrimp are gone. And this wasn’t that long ago, but Narragansett Bay has turned over to a new ecosystem.”

Prior to leaving, Whitehouse gave the kids an extra dose of inspiration to continue towards a course in politics if they were truly looking into it.

“It’s been really, really rewarding,” he said of his time in politics. “So, to the extent that you have an interest brewing in the back of your mind that this might be something that you might be interested in doing, I would encourage you. There are defeats as well as victories, there are disappointments as well as joys, but it’s a very, very meaningful and rewarding thing to do.”