It was a packed house in Wallis Annenberg Hall's atrium on Tuesday when Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass) joined Professor Bob Shrum for a wide-ranging conversation that covered everything from his personal politics to his forecast for the 2020 presidential election.
Shrum began by asking about Kennedy's personal experiences while serving in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic.
"It is the single most powerful professional experience I have ever had," Kennedy said. "There is not a single day that goes by that I do not draw from the experience."
The congressman encouraged students to learn about the Peace Corps – an organization started by his great-uncle Sargent Shriver – and to pursue experiences that will challenge their worldviews.
"Try to find what forces you to see things differently, what forces you outside your comfort zone," he said.
Shrum also asked Kennedy about his outspokeness on LGBTQ issues.
"If you look up at the Supreme Court building, the four words etched in stone are 'Equal Justice Under Law,'" Kennedy said. "But the fact is that our country's history is one of fighting to include all Americans in 'all men are created equal.'"
"Our government doesn't always do that, but we can change," he said.
The conversation inevitably shifted to the 2020 presidential election and Kennedy's decision to endorse Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
"The single biggest issue is we have is an economy that does not empower the American worker to meet the needs that today's society demands," Kennedy said. "Nobody understands the economy and the tools we can use to recalibrate the system in favor of the American worker more than Sen. Warren."
Other questions included what it would take to defeat President Trump's reelection campaign ("changing his narrative that pits groups against each other"), which modern-day public figures Kennedy most admires ("Obama and Biden"), and how to combat Trump's stymieing of Congressional oversight ("make sure the Mueller report is made public").
Kennedy even conducted a quick poll of the audience to gauge which issues mattered most to them. By a show of hands, the most popular issues were climate change, immigration reform, gun safety, and gender equity.
For his part, Kennedy unequivocally agreed that climate change will be a winning issue for Democrats in 2020 and explained his support for the Green New Deal.
"We went to the moon in 10 years with less technology than is in our iPhones," he said. "We can save the planet. We can have 330 million Americans all pulling together and do this. But we all need to get behind it."
He then opened the discussion to the audience, which included questions about identity politics, infrastructure and even tips on picking candidates to vote for.
The event was organized by the Political Student Assembly, USC's Undergraduate Student Government, the Dornsife Center for the Political Future, and the Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. Professor Shrum is the founder and director of the Center for the Political Future.