| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
As we look at the start of presidential terms, this week, we focus on the early months of President Franklin Roosevelt's first term in 1933, including actions taken to relieve economic conditions during the Great Depression. | |
| And at 8 p.m. Eastern on lectures in history, Yale University professor Marlena Dow talks about the life and legacy of slave revolutionary and king Henry Christophe and how the United States and other foreign powers reacted to the 1791 Haitian Revolution. | ||
| And at 10.15 p.m. Eastern on the presidency, National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen leads a discussion of presidential historians on inaugural addresses and how they shape a president's legacy. | ||
| Exploring the American story, watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| Governors Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, and Jared Polis of Colorado were featured speakers at the Politico Governor's Summit commenting on policy initiatives in their states and the first few weeks of the second Trump administration. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| My name is Elena Schneider. | ||
| I'm a national political reporter at Politico. | ||
| Welcome to the Governor Summit. | ||
| We are so thrilled that you guys are here. | ||
| We're going to have some really excellent conversations this morning. | ||
| And joining me virtually this morning is Democratic Governor Andy Bashir of Kentucky. | ||
| Governor, thank you so much for joining us this morning. | ||
| Good morning and thanks for having me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we've got a lot to cover. | |
| In a short amount of time, we're going to talk about tariffs and Medicaid and of course politics because we are Politico. | ||
| But first, Governor, you know, you very understandably had to cancel your in-person interview here because of the devastating floods that have hit your state in the last few days. | ||
| So I just want to just take a moment to let you talk a little bit about how Kentucky's doing, how the recovery is going. | ||
| Just briefly give us a little bit of an update. | ||
| Well, we've been hit hard, and we've been hit hard by natural disasters, historic natural disasters, the last several years. | ||
| In 2021, we had the worst tornado disaster in our history, killed 81 people. | ||
| 2022, worst flooding in our history, killed 45 people. | ||
| And right now, we're dealing with a flood and a snowstorm on top of it that thus far has taken the lives of 14 people. | ||
| Once again, we have hundreds of Kentuckians whose homes may not have been swept away this time, but certainly have been ruined or have significant damage. | ||
| So we are once again in that situation where we got to rebuild and we've got to march forward. | ||
| Thankfully, we have the power back on to most of the state. | ||
| We've gone from about 40,000 connections out to less than 1,000, which is really good news. | ||
| We're getting all of our water systems back up online, and all this was important because wind chill is negative two or three where I am today. | ||
| So again, you know, Mother Nature hit us with a historic flood, then a snowstorm, and then historic cold, but we're tough in Kentucky. | ||
| Thankfully, people have rallied and they've rallied to help, as has the rest of the country and the world. | ||
| We opened a fund to help our people first to pay for each funeral because what we do in Kentucky is we mourn together. | ||
| We don't want any family to be worried about that obligation while they're putting their loved one to rest. | ||
| That's the Teen Kentucky Storm Relief Fund, and we appreciate everybody's help in that. | ||
| We hope that by the end of the weekend, we'll be out of the worst of it. | ||
| It's supposed to be about 50 degrees on Monday, and that's going to feel balmy to us after everything we've been through. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, no kidding. | |
| Thank you, Governor. | ||
| So staying on disaster relief for just a moment here, President Trump has said that the federal emergency management agency, FEMA, has, quote, gotten in the way of recovery. | ||
| He at the time was referring to the California wildfires, the hurricane that hit North Carolina. | ||
| I wonder, he's also suggested abolishing FEMA outright and having the states handle disaster relief, and he's also made significant cuts already. | ||
| How do you think, as somebody who's dealing with a disaster right now, do you agree with his assessment that they should get rid of FEMA and the state should handle it? | ||
| I don't. | ||
| Now, FEMA needs a number of fixes and improvements, but this is the 13th federally declared disaster since I've been governor over five years. | ||
| I've worked with FEMA a lot. | ||
| And when you think about a natural disaster, you first have a search and rescue, the emergency phase, and then you have an intermediate housing phase where you've got to find a safe place for people to be for a year, two years, depending. | ||
| And then you have the rebuilding phase. | ||
| FEMA's very good at that first search and rescue phase. | ||
| They surge in resources. | ||
| They had multiple National Guards come in to help us. | ||
| They bring in Swiftwater boat teams that help. | ||
| They bring in extra people to help in our call centers. | ||
| They're very good at surging resources at that point that you need it the most. | ||
| I mean, we've made over 1,000 boat rescues and over 300 air rescues since this started, and we couldn't have done that without FEMA's help. | ||
| That means that FEMA's surging of resources helps to protect lives. | ||
| Now, the challenge with FEMA is when you get into the later piece, especially when you have individual assistance, when people can get some relief for their loss. | ||
| And that system is overly complex. | ||
| Too many people are turned down by it, but a lot of that is what Congress has said to FEMA. | ||
| It has put some shackles and some difficulties on them about how it's processed. | ||
| Now, we made some demands in 2022 because our people were hurting and it was way too hard and we saw some improvements. | ||
| That doesn't mean it didn't leave a bad taste in people's mouth. | ||
| But I want you to think about the math. | ||
| It's this same group, even if they're too tough, that processes these claims for all 50 states when a natural disaster occurs. | ||
| Now, if FEMA goes away, the requirements by Congress stay. | ||
| And so all 50 states would have to do that same processing. | ||
| And that means the overhead to do it with each state having to do it would eat up the dollars that are available for our people. | ||
| So we've got to be thoughtful. | ||
| You know, when something needs to be fixed, let's fix it. | ||
| Let's certainly not break it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Got it. | |
| Well, let's turn to Washington and the decisions here that are going to affect your state. | ||
| About 28% of Kentuckians receive Medicaid. | ||
| You're the fourth highest out of the 50 states in terms of percentage of Medicaid recipients, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. | ||
| On True Social yesterday, Trump endorsed the House Republicans plan, which would slash billions in funding for Medicaid. | ||
| Even though the night before, Trump told Fox News that, quote, Medicare and Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched. | ||
| So how are you preparing for the possibility that your state could see major cuts? | ||
| And do you think that there is a realistic probability that this could actually move through the House? | ||
| I believe that health care is a basic human right and that no one should ever have to worry about being able to afford seeing their doctor or taking their parents or their kids to that next appointment. | ||
| Medicaid and expanded Medicaid not only cover hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians, but they also support a health care industry that is critical for our people. | ||
| Without expanded Medicaid and without a well-funded Medicaid system, rural hospitals close. | ||
| Doctors and nurses and everyone else lose their jobs. | ||
| People have to drive multiple hours just to see their regular doctor, much less a specialist. | ||
| Rural America deserves health care. | ||
| States like mine deserve health care and cuts to Medicaid or the national health funding, they put all of that at risk. | ||
| So my hope is certainly that every congressman or woman and every senator from any state that has a rural health care system would stand up and would stop this. | ||
| You know, if we're looking to make our workforce more productive, if we want to get people that aren't at work back to work, the idea is to get them healthier, not to cut off their health care. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you in touch with any congressional Republicans? | |
| What have you said to them about these efforts? | ||
| Well, my current discussions are primarily on this natural disaster. | ||
| Thankfully, our entire congressional delegation has come together to push for more assistance for Kentucky. | ||
| And let me just say, the Trump administration has worked really well with us thus far. | ||
| We haven't seen any concerns over FEMA affect us on the ground. | ||
| But as we move into these other issues, first, we're pushing to undo some funds that are frozen. | ||
| You know, I see Elon Musk's tech interns or tech bros running around D.C., they may understand AI, but they don't understand funds like AML. | ||
| Let me tell you what AML is. | ||
| It's a fund that was created to help Appalachia. | ||
| Right now, the freeze that's in effect or their refusal to push money out is stopping a project that's bringing clean drinking water to 961 homes in Brett County, 650 homes in hazard, that is repairing rock slides and mudslides that threaten the lives of the people in the communities underneath them. | ||
| You know, these actions require that people actually know what they're doing, that they learn the people that they might hurt. | ||
| You know, Kentucky, I think, was the first state called for President Trump. | ||
| You know, over he won by 30 points. | ||
| Yet a lot of these freezes and a lot of these actions hurt my people the most. | ||
| And so when I stand up and I speak out, it's not because I'm a Democratic governor. | ||
| It's because I'm the governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and I pledge to my people I would do my very best for them every day. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So let's move to tariffs. | |
| This is a topic that you've talked a lot about. | ||
| Trump has delayed his threats of tariffs against Canada and Mexico until next month. | ||
| But like I said, you've talked about it a lot. | ||
| Canada is Kentucky's number one export partner. | ||
| If Trump's tariffs do go into effect, what, if anything, can you as governor yourself do to work around, potentially work around those tariffs? | ||
| It'll be a challenge. | ||
| We'll do everything we can, but it will hit us and it'll hit us hard, and it already is hitting the American people. | ||
| So Kentucky has set export records, actually every economic record, in the last several years. | ||
| Our economy is booming, and this is the biggest threat I've seen to it, aside from the pandemic since I became governor. | ||
| We've set export records in back-to-back years, but Canada is about 22, 23% of all of our exports, and we're not alone as a state in those numbers. | ||
| I believe that Donald Trump ultimately became president because that last group of movable voters thought he would do more to bring down prices. | ||
| Yet we see inflation going up. | ||
| We see these threatened tariffs and the ones put in effect, raising the price of gas, raising the price of groceries. | ||
| If this president continues to focus on the culture war issues and ignores what's happening in our economy, uses tariffs to try to get non-economic concessions, thus gambling, the price of everything, gambling on inflation, I think the American people will end up feeling betrayed because they believed that he was less distracted and would do more. | ||
| But what we've seen thus far is he's doing everything but address prices. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I wonder, have you, given everything that's going on in your state with the floods, communicating on Doge or even on tariffs and what that might do to Kentucky? | |
| Have you been able to speak to the government? | ||
| I mean, excuse me, to the president directly about any of these concerns? | ||
| I haven't had a conversation directly with the president. | ||
| I'm hoping to be in D.C. tomorrow for the governor's meeting with the president. | ||
| I certainly want to engage him and the administration on anything we agree on. | ||
| Again, that's my job, where we agree and it helps Kentuckians to be supportive, but to stand up when policies would hurt my state. | ||
| That's again just being the best governor of Kentucky that I can be. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, since you raised the idea of working with the president, that was a question I had for you too. | |
| There is this ongoing debate in Washington whether to work with Trump versus when to resist him. | ||
| And I've been thinking about this debate, particularly in the context of immigration. | ||
| We know voters in 2024 were deeply concerned about illegal immigration, and last month you said you had not received any requests for assistance from federal immigration authorities yet, but you would, quote, evaluate anything and everything of potential requests. | ||
| So is immigration enforcement an area where you think Democrats should work with Trump and Republicans in this moment? | ||
| I believe that border security is national security. | ||
| And so under both President Trump the first time and President Biden, we answered the call and provided National Guard on a federal mission to the border where they served and served honorably. | ||
| We have not received any requests to assist on immigration, but understand that those requests could run just a huge swath of what is otherwise speculation. | ||
| You know, if there is a request to find a fugitive, a violent criminal, that we would certainly otherwise be pursuing, yes, that's something that we would certainly help with, and we do on a regular basis, anyways. | ||
| My two biggest concerns, if and when asked, and this has been shared by even some of our biggest supporters of the president in law enforcement, is first, our regular law enforcement or our guard do not have specific training that ICE agents get on immigration law. | ||
| I think it's about a two-month course that they get, and this is a very specific area of law. | ||
| And so there's a concern there. | ||
| The second concern is legal liability, is whether they're covered like the federal agents are if there is an issue there. | ||
| But you can even look at a third scenario that says if the immigration officers are going to do something and we're asked to simply provide some security for the rest of the community so nothing spills over, well, that's something we got to consider too, because everyone else's safety around any operation that they're conducting is really important. | ||
| So like with most things, this isn't a black and a white issue or a white issue. | ||
| It's something that we have to look at and analyze as any request comes in. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, based on Politico's reporting and other outlets reporting, we do know that the Trump administration is not just targeting migrants who have committed crimes. | |
| The White House has even said that they consider anyone who has crossed the border illegally as a criminal. | ||
| So are there any red lines for you when it comes to immigration? | ||
|
unidentified
|
If they were trying to access a school or a church to move through with this, are there any red lines for you in terms of deportations and what Trump is trying to do as it relates to immigration? | |
| Well, I think my and everybody else's red line would be any operation that is unsafe. | ||
| An operation inside a school that risked violence inside a school, that ought to be a red line for everyone. | ||
| You know, those are my kids who are in high school and everyone else's. | ||
| So my hope is that even in this push that the Trump administration is making, that each individual operation is evaluated for its safety of both the officers and agents involved, but also the broader community around it. | ||
| And that takes some thought about where and when these operations occur. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gotcha. | |
| So after, let's turn to politics here for a moment. | ||
| After the 2024 election, you wrote an op-ed in the New York Times where you said, and I quote, the focus of the Democratic Party must return to creating jobs, to creating better jobs, more affordable, accessible health care, safer roads and bridges, the best education for our children and communities where people aren't just safer, but also feel safer, end quote. | ||
| So I can imagine if I'm Joe Biden or Kamala Harris reading that essay, wildly gesticulating at their record saying, CHIPSACT, the IRA pumping billions into, or excuse me, millions into infrastructure projects, capping the cost for insulin for seniors. | ||
| I don't want you to look backwards, but I'm curious, given what Harris and Biden had to run on in 2024, and yet still the results that we saw, what must Democrats do differently ahead of 26 and 28 to execute on what you said in that op-ed? | ||
| Well, there is a difference in what our officials and the president and vice president were out there doing versus what people heard. | ||
| There's what you spend the most of your time talking about and bringing people's attention to, and that's critically important. | ||
| Now, like I said in that op-ed, for our American families, they wake up worried about their job, their next doctor's appointment, the roads and bridges they drive each day, the public school they drop their kids at, and whether they feel safe in their community. | ||
| And if you can't satisfy those needs as much as you care about that next issue, you can't get to it. | ||
| And if a candidate you believe will help you pay the bills at the end of the month, then you may lean towards that candidate, even if you disagree with them on a lot of other things. | ||
| So I think what the Democratic Party, but I hope everybody needs to do is first spend 80% of your time there, the way you govern, the way you communicate, and people need to be able to see, feel, and touch these things, these advancements in their lives. | ||
| When I started my 2023 election in a state a year later, Donald Trump would win by 30 points. | ||
| I recognized that while we had had the best two years for economic development, those jobs were going to take a little longer to come online. | ||
| So I made sure when I talked about a growing economy, I was standing in front of the largest battery plant on planet Earth that we were building. | ||
| That's not signing something in the rose garden. | ||
| That's the actual tangible result. | ||
| And here's something that I think people get wrong. | ||
| People laugh about ribbon cuttings. | ||
| But if you look at an announcement, that's the hope. | ||
| A groundbreaking is the progress, but a ribbon cutting is the reality. | ||
| So there's this town called Henderson. | ||
| It's formerly a coal mining town in western Kentucky. | ||
| And I just barely won it in 2019. | ||
| But we were able, thanks to an investment by Pratt Paper, put the cleanest, greenest recycled paper mill in the world there. | ||
| 350 jobs paying almost $40 an hour. | ||
| And that ribbon cutting was something. | ||
| 350 of my fellow Kentuckians having really good jobs. | ||
| We ended up winning Henderson by double digits. | ||
| And that's because, again, when people believe that you are actually improving their lives and they see it and they feel it, they'll change the way they vote. | ||
| And the last two things I'd say is you got to get dirt on your boots. | ||
| Again, get out there. | ||
| Show people what you're doing. | ||
| Talk to them in their own communities. | ||
| And then we got to talk to people like real human beings. | ||
| We've sanitized different language so significantly that people don't feel like we're talking to them. | ||
| That's everything from us now using terms like substance use disorder when someone going through it even calls it addiction, or now the idea of justice involved populations, which are folks in our prisons and jails where we work really hard to reduce recidivism, to place people in jobs. | ||
| But those terms. | ||
| To everybody else out there, it's just, it's hard to communicate when you're not using some normal language. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gotcha. | |
| So are you saying that it was more about the messengers than maybe the message itself? | ||
| Well, I think some of the programs, and I think President Biden would say this and was frustrated by it, took too long to get out there. | ||
| Took too long to get those actual jobs up and running. | ||
| And I think because of the pandemic and some other issues, he wasn't able to get out as much and show his work. | ||
| You know, I would be at groundbreakings for things that happened under the bipartisan infrastructure law or the IRA, and I'd have the Republican congressmen who voted against it, but they were still there. | ||
| Why were they there? | ||
| Because it was showing progress in their communities. | ||
| So I think it's really important as Democrats that we remind people the why, what's out there, the why something happened, but also just show them that tangible piece. | ||
| And if I can add on to the last answer, another thing that we've gotten away from is communicating about our why, why we make certain decisions. | ||
| So when I vetoed the nastiest anti-LGBTQ bill in our history, and I did it in my election year, I talked about my why, and that's my faith. | ||
| I believe that all children are children of God, and I didn't want our legislature picking on those children. | ||
| I wanted them to know that if their legislature was attacking them, that their governor cared about them. | ||
| But communicating that why, you know, I had somebody the next day that said, Governor, I might not agree with you, but I know you're doing what you think is right. | ||
| That gives people the grace and the space to disagree, but to still support. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So you are famous for somebody who shows up everywhere. | |
| You had Andy Hour, these fireside chats during the pandemic. | ||
| As you said, you love ribbon cuttings, groundbakings, all kinds of events across your state. | ||
| Do you think that other Democrats are afraid to go to uncomfortable places, to red areas? | ||
| Do you worry about the Democratic Party not doing enough of that, not showing up? | ||
| Well, I think we need to do more. | ||
| You know, we had a program in my last election called Red to Pink. | ||
| It's okay to go somewhere that's not going to flip. | ||
| It's okay to go. | ||
| And for me, these are my people, right? | ||
| The reason that I go isn't an electoral strategy. | ||
| It's because I'm governor of Kentucky and I owe them just as much as anybody else. | ||
| But we've got to be everywhere in America. | ||
| To reearn the faith of working people, we've got to go where working folks are and in all parts. | ||
| And when you bring success to different parts, especially when you bring success to a place where maybe people didn't vote for you, then they start thinking that maybe this is all a little bit bigger than politics, which it is. | ||
| And we get caught up in the back and forth between the R's and the Ds, but typically good government is good politics. | ||
| Success lifts everybody up. | ||
| And my hope, my hope is that after what we're going through, we can get a lot closer to focusing on those five key areas. | ||
| That's where the common ground is. | ||
| That's where we can apply some common sense. | ||
| And I think that's where we can make some progress and lower the temperature of this country because I think people are exhausted about the constant back and forth. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, Governor, I'll close with this. | |
| You won your second term as governor in 2023. | ||
| You're 47 years old, which I think in politician years makes you a baby. | ||
| I wonder, do you want to stay in politics after your term as governor ends? | ||
| Well, we'll see. | ||
| What I'd say is, I love what I do. | ||
| I've got two years and eight months to give the very best for my people. | ||
| I'm vice chair of the Democratic Governors Association this year and chair in 26, where I have 36 races that are so important because I believe Democratic governors are good governors that move their states forward for their people. | ||
| But I love this country, and I hate to see how divided it is. | ||
| And as the dad of a 15 and a 14-year-old, I don't want to leave the current state of our country and the current state of politics to my kids and to all of our kids and grandkids. | ||
| I think we've got a duty to fix the problems that arose during our lifetimes, during our terms of service. | ||
| And if there is an ability or another opportunity to do that, it's something I'd consider because, again, my kids and everybody's kids and grandkids, they deserve a lot better than what we're seeing right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Governor, it sounds like we're going to stay in close touch with you as you consider all those things. | |
| So thank you, sir. | ||
| We really appreciate this conversation and the thoughtfulness that you brought to those answers. | ||
| And with that, we're out of time. | ||
| Again, thank you, Governor Bastier, for your time. | ||
| And next up, we'll have Oklahoma Governor Stitt with Politico State Policy Reporter Liz Crampton. | ||
| Thank you all. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oklahoma Governor | |
| Kevin Stitt, thank you for being here. | ||
| Let's get into it. | ||
| All everyone has been talking about in DC lately is Elon Musk and Doge. | ||
| Now, you have said that you have been, quote, doging before it was cool and launched your own version of a Doge Commission in Oklahoma to cut spending costs. | ||
| So you clearly support the mission of this initiative. | ||
| But with thousands of federal employees now out of work, some of whom were doing critical work like wildfire prevention, researching infectious diseases, and discussions of shuttering entire agencies like Department of Ed, do you have any concerns about Doge going too far and eliminating parts of government that could negatively impact your residents? | ||
| Do you have any concerns about collateral damage? | ||
| Well, first off, thanks so much for having me here. | ||
| You know, I applaud President Trump and Elon for looking at spending. | ||
| So big picture, if you back up, we're right now spending $2 trillion over our income. | ||
| That is unsustainable. | ||
| And Congress has a tough job because I know there's a lot of great programs out there and there's a lot of great needs. | ||
| But in my opinion, you know, states already have balanced budgets. | ||
| We have to look at our spending, right? | ||
| So for example, would you do you borrow? | ||
| I'm going to ask everybody here, do you borrow $20,000 on your credit card at the end of the year to give to a humanitarian effort? | ||
| Of course you don't. | ||
| We give out of the abundance. | ||
| So all of the spending that we're doing around the world, somebody should be looking at it. | ||
| So I think that's the big picture that most people in America think our spending is out of control. | ||
| It's driving inflation up. | ||
| When I say doge in Oklahoma, so about 40% of our dollars that come from to our states come from the federal government. | ||
| So if we're going to be cutting spending, if we're going to have a reduction of that federal dollars coming into Oklahoma, the states need a say in how that money is spent. | ||
| So, when I say that's what we want to do to make sure we're not cutting core services, so we want to tell Elon and Doge at the federal level: hey, here's how we can take a 10% reduction in Oklahoma from the federal side if that's what they're planning on doing. | ||
| So, states need to have an effort. | ||
| The other thing I'll say about the federal spending: it's the states that are doing the education, the infrastructure, the health care. | ||
| We're running our economies. | ||
| And so, the way that we look at it is the federal government, whatever agency, we would prefer more block grants. | ||
| We would prefer more ability to spend the money to spend the money the way that we think we can more efficiently than kind of wash through the federal bureaucracy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd like to talk about the federal funding freeze. | |
| There have been reports of some farmers throughout the country not receiving USDA grants that they had come to rely on for their operations. | ||
| What have you been hearing from farmers in your state? | ||
| And do you have any concerns that farmers could once again be caught in the crosshairs of Trump policies? | ||
| You know, I mean, here's the deal: sure, farming is so, so critical. | ||
| I mean, in Oklahoma, I think that's our number two or number three industry. | ||
| But from a business perspective, we're going to figure it out, right? | ||
| They'll figure out the rules of the game. | ||
| Do we believe that we should be subsidizing every single thing? | ||
| Is that important to the U.S., to the United States? | ||
| Okay, maybe, but you have to look at the overall spending and the balanced budget, I think, is the overall effort that we need to get to. | ||
| It's been, whatever, you guys know better than I do from the federal level, but maybe 30 years since they've actually passed a budget. | ||
| It's just these continuing resolutions. | ||
| And so, I don't think our founding fathers even vision envisioned a time when Congress would not be doing their core function of how much we should be spending and negotiating those things. | ||
| So, farming is important, but so is apparently all the stuff that USAA does and all the different things. | ||
| And so, when you move someone's cheese, everybody's going to be complaining about it. | ||
| The president has a tough job, but in our opinion, the president has the right to look at this spending and say, is that really a core mission of the federal government, especially when we're having to borrow so much money to do it? | ||
| And that's where I think people in Oklahoma and Middle America and they voted for President Trump because they want to look at things differently. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's talk energy. | |
| You have spearheaded a clean energy boom in Oklahoma. | ||
| And in an interview just this week with Politico, you called for the Trump administration to honor the clean energy contract signed by the Biden administration. | ||
| I want to follow up on a point that you made to my colleague, which was you said that you intend to discuss Trump's calls to repeal IRA wind tax credits with Interior Secretary Doug Bergham. | ||
| Have you had that conversation yet? | ||
| Well, it sounds like you're putting some words in my mouth there. | ||
| Basically, what I said is: if a deal is a deal, you know, if there's a supply chain issue and we're recruiting companies to Oklahoma or Texas or California or Florida and they're moving here based on an agreement that was done, I don't think all of those folks should be grandfathered in. | ||
| That's basically what I said. | ||
| So, and then when you think about that's that's basically what I said. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Have you discussed any concerns about those tax credits ending with or potential repeal of IRA funds with your Republican governors who also have benefited from clean energy and EV? | ||
| Like, is there a future Republican governor's wind caucus? | ||
| Well, you know, here's the deal: Oklahoma, we're like number three in the country in electricity generated by wind. | ||
| We have the most affordable, reliable energy anywhere in the country. | ||
| And it's a lot to do with our clean, burning natural gas, right? | ||
| But we're not opposed to wind development. | ||
| We're not opposed to solar development or hydrogen. | ||
| We believe you need more of everything. | ||
| If you think about AI and data centers and the need for electricity usage, you're going to need more generation. | ||
| I think the problem that most Americans are, why do we borrow trillions of dollars and pick this industry over this industry? | ||
| So when you're picking winners and losers and you're incentivizing these industries, that's where we have a problem with it. | ||
| Let's let the free market work. | ||
| Let's let private industries innovate to meet the needs of Americans. | ||
| Because at the end of the day, as governor, the people I talk to in Oklahoma, they want to take their kids to piano lessons and soccer practice, and they've got to heat their homes, their businesses. | ||
| We want affordable groceries when we go to the grocery store. | ||
| And energy has a lot to do with that. | ||
| The Biden administration, by banning putting a pause on LNG exports, really that hurts our allies around the world more than anything. | ||
| It hurts our domestic producers. | ||
| So you have to back up and think: what are we doing? | ||
| We believe in a free market. | ||
| And whether that's wind development or whether it's solar development or whether it's more natural gas, I think we have to get government out of the way and allow private business to meet the needs of Americans. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Moving to immigration. | |
| Just last week, you stopped a plan pushed by your state's top education official requiring that children reveal their immigration status when registering for school. | ||
| That could be seen as a bit of a departure from your Republican colleagues in other states who have been very aggressive on immigration enforcement in this Trump era. | ||
| Can you explain your decision-making there? | ||
| Yeah, so to me, that was just, it was common sense. | ||
| I mean, I never ran for office. | ||
| I was a businessman and decided to run and serve my state as governor and fortunately won. | ||
| But so most people in the political world don't want to touch this issue, right? | ||
| It's like a hot potato. | ||
| Let's not talk about immigration. | ||
| But with my research, I mean, they were talking about this, you know, 50 years ago when Reagan was running for president. | ||
| I mean, these issues have not gone away. | ||
| What are we going to do on the immigration issue? | ||
| And so, you know, I just applaud President Trump for making sure that we're closing the southern border. | ||
| We know who's coming into our country. | ||
| I think he did that day one in office, and we have over 90% fewer interactions at the southern border than we did even a year ago. | ||
| So I applaud that. | ||
| But I thought that my state superintendent started was being a little bit political on this issue and was going after some kids. | ||
| And I'm like, listen, we're not going to attack six, seven, eight-year-old kids asking for immigration status. | ||
| That's not a public safety issue. | ||
| So I put a stop to that. | ||
| And we're going to educate kids in Oklahoma. | ||
| There's a bigger issue that we're going to make sure that we know who's coming to our country. | ||
| But I've been a proponent for, you know, governors having more authority on workforce visas, right? | ||
| It's common sense to me to match employers with employees, whether it's in engineering, construction, agriculture. | ||
| If you want to chase the American dream, pay taxes, do what's right, be in the country, let's give them a contract to work. | ||
| But let's make sure if you're not going to work, if you're going to break the law, we don't want you here. | ||
| We're not going to give people free services. | ||
| We've got to know who's coming into our country. | ||
| And so I think those are the common sense, the way I kind of look at the immigration issue. | ||
| And I think most Americans agree with me on it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I want to go back to that decision. | |
| Does this mean that you oppose the president's action allowing ICE agents to make arrests in schools and churches? | ||
| Do you think that that should not be touched? | ||
| Well, I don't think that's what he said. | ||
| He just changed the rule. | ||
| Biden said that was absolutely off limits. | ||
| And so he changed that rule to say, no, nothing's off limits. | ||
| If they're going after a bad guy in a school, it's not going to be kind of a safe haven, so to speak. | ||
| So I think that's what he said. | ||
| I don't believe the president is wanting to go after school kids. | ||
| I think he wants to make a statement. | ||
| We've got to know who's coming in the country, and we're going to make sure we get the criminal element out of the country. | ||
| We have people in prison in Oklahoma that have done some bad things that are illegals. | ||
| And so we set up Operation Guardian to work with President Trump to say, hey, that shouldn't be footed by the Oklahoma taxpayers. | ||
| And so we're going to be working with him on getting the criminal activity out of our state. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Some context here about that state superintendent. | |
| They're rumored to be eyeing a run for governor, and you're termed out in 2026. | ||
| Do you have any thoughts on who you think should be your successor? | ||
| No, you know, the field, there's been, I think, two announcements so far. | ||
| There's probably two or three other folks that are looking to run, but I'm keeping my eye on it. | ||
| And I'll be coming out and trying to promote the ones that I think will carry on the conservative, common sense, pro-business agenda that I've done for the last six years now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's talk tariffs. | |
| Oklahoma could be negatively impacted by the tariffs on steel and aluminum from China. | ||
| What are your plans to insulate your residents on that front? | ||
| Is there anything that you can do? | ||
| You know, speaking of tariffs, listen, I support the president. | ||
| He, number one, using it as a negotiation tool. | ||
| Number two, we have to get some of the critical supply chain closer to home. | ||
| You think about critical minerals. | ||
| Oklahoma has been a leader. | ||
| We have more mineral to magnet manufacturers. | ||
| That critical mineral industry is so important to the technology, whether it's chips, whether it's the magnets that go into cell phones or fighter jets. | ||
| And so we need to get that supply chain closer to home. | ||
| So if tariffs are a way to get that done, that'll be good. | ||
| There's another huge billion-dollar company from overseas that are looking to come to the U.S. coming to Oklahoma, and the tariffs actually will help them. | ||
| So, you know, there's obviously there's consequences either way. | ||
| But as a general rule, the America First agenda, creating manufacturing and jobs here, I think, you know, somebody needs to look at that, and I think the president is doing a good job. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| Let's move on to abortion. | ||
| A few years ago, you signed the most restrictive law on abortion in the country, which essentially bans all abortions, with an exception to save the life of the mother. | ||
| Republican state lawmakers have since introduced bills in the last year or so to further restrict abortion. | ||
| Is the abortion issue settled for you? | ||
| You know, it really is. | ||
| I mean, there's like 3,000 new bills filed in Oklahoma every year. | ||
| I'm sure every state's the same. | ||
| I'm like, how can the world can you come up with 3,000 new things to do every year? | ||
| It's just, it's mind-boggling. | ||
| But the, and the abortion deal is no different. | ||
| We believe in protecting life in Oklahoma, protecting the life of the mother and the child, being the most pro-family state in the country. | ||
| But yeah, the issue is settled. | ||
| We're not going to criminalize anything. | ||
| There's tons of bills that are filed for people to get headlines, and that's how the legislature sometimes does it. | ||
| But I doubt seriously that will get to my desk. | ||
| But we'll be protecting moms in Oklahoma. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What's your stance on the Texas lawsuit against a New York doctor for prescribing abortion pills to Texas residents? | |
| Is that a legal strategy we could expect to see out of Oklahoma as well? | ||
| Well, I saw that. | ||
| And, you know, states do need clarity. | ||
| So states like Oklahoma, states like Texas that believe in protecting life. | ||
| There's doctors in other states like who's in charge of the care of that patient. | ||
| If they're just sending prescriptions or sending medicine, are they really in charge of that? | ||
| We do need clarity from the courts on what that looks like. | ||
| Whether Oklahoma joins that, I don't know. | ||
| I haven't spoken with our Attorney General on that specific issue, but we'll just have to wait and see. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| We're here to recognize the importance of states' influence on the national policy conversation. | ||
| And so much of what we've seen come out of the White House in the last month has already happened in the States. | ||
| School vouchers, trans issues. | ||
| What's a policy that you have pioneered in Oklahoma that you want to see a federal version of in the next few years? | ||
| You know, I mean, speaking of that, you know, to us, it was pretty common sense. | ||
| I did, I was, I think, maybe the first governor to say, listen, we're going to protect our women sports in Oklahoma. | ||
| We're not going to let boys play in girls' sports. | ||
| And so I went to the White House, I think, last week or the week before when the President signed that executive order. | ||
| We just think that's pretty common sense. | ||
| We think we're in line with most Americans. | ||
| We're not against anybody, but we do want to protect women's sports. | ||
| But those are things we've done in our state, and now they're being done with a Republican president. | ||
| Specifically, I can't think of a policy that hasn't been done yet, but I'll get back with you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| You're headed to the White House shortly after this event, actually. | ||
| What message do you intend to share with the President? | ||
| Well, I don't know if I'll be talking to the President, but I'm having lunch with the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, and so we'll talk some MAG issues and we'll probably bring up some of these tariff issues that you've talked about. | ||
| But she's a friend, and so I'll just ask her how her job's going and what we can do to be helpful in Oklahoma with our great cotton farmers, wheat farmers, soybean, cattle producers, that kind of stuff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| All right. | ||
| Thank you so much for being here. | ||
| Thank you, everyone. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Hello. | ||
| Hello, everyone. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| Thank you all for being here. | ||
| I am Eugene Daniels, White House correspondent and chief playbook correspondent at Politico, and I'm very happy to be here with Governor Polis from Colorado. | ||
| He was my member of Congress when I was in college at Colorado State University, so we have that connection. | ||
| So you're going to tell me all the secrets today, I'm assuming. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There we go. | |
| I hope so. | ||
| I hope so too. | ||
| I want to start with a very serious question, which is, you seem to hate pennies for some reason. | ||
| You've told Doge that they need to get rid of pennies. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oddly enough, I'm a bit of an amateur coin collector. | |
| It happened since I was a kid, so I hate the pennies. | ||
| No, I love pennies. | ||
| I love pennies. | ||
| But I hate government waste. | ||
| I see. | ||
| And pennies cost about three cents to make. | ||
| Really, it would save the federal government over $200 million a year. | ||
| And not to mention the environmental impact, the zinc that goes into the pennies, the electricity that's made in producing them. | ||
| So it's wasteful from an environmental perspective. | ||
| It's a waste of taxpayer money. | ||
| And yeah, when I was in Congress, I sponsored a bill to get rid of the penny. | ||
| Like most bills in Congress didn't go anywhere. | ||
| Hopefully that President Trump and Doge can make progress in finally getting rid of the penny. | ||
| Have you talked to the White House about your penny crusade? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've tweeted about it. | |
| Is that the right word? | ||
| I've Xed about it. | ||
| I've Xed about it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've posted about it. | |
| Put an announcement. | ||
| I want to get into tariffs a little bit because that's something that you have worked on quite a bit. | ||
| You have been pretty outspoken about tariffs. | ||
| You also oppose President Biden's solar tariffs, for example, so your equal opportunity there. | ||
| What are the businesses in your state telling you about how they would be impacted if some of these tariffs that President Trump is talking about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, tariffs are bad across the board. | |
| I'm going to talk about the economic theory of why, and then I want to talk about the harmful impacts. | ||
| So look, when two people or people in two countries or two willing parties engage in a transaction, they both leave better off. | ||
| We have something, they have something, we both want what the other one has. | ||
| We trade. | ||
| It inherently creates value because it's two willing parties engaged in a transaction, each to their mutual benefit. | ||
| By definition, they only engage in that transaction if it's to their mutual benefit. | ||
| So trade is wonderful. | ||
| Trade is great. | ||
| Trade increases the prosperity of both parties. | ||
| Tariffs are damaging, and a lot is talked about, of course. | ||
| They raise the price of every product that's consumer-facing by the amount of the tariff. | ||
| It costs that much more. | ||
| It's inflationary. | ||
| But it also would destroy American manufacturing. | ||
| Because when I talk to manufacturers in Colorado, many components and parts are sourced across the world in a global supply chain. | ||
| And a lot of the companies that invest in capital for manufacturing would move those factories overseas if they face tariffs on importing the components that they need to the United States. | ||
| It would hurt our farmers and ranchers. | ||
| Colorado's largest export is beef, and it would hurt Colorado producers of nearly every product across the board. | ||
| So, consumers, yes, it hurts, but it also would devastate manufacturing and it would decrease not just American wealth but global wealth. | ||
| Have you told, have you tried to talk to the Trump administration about this? | ||
| Because they have the exact opposite economic theory about the impacts of tariffs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, like any American, I, you know, you've got some power. | |
| Well, I hope so. | ||
| I don't control tariffs. | ||
| We'd get rid of them if we did. | ||
| We've been very active, like many governors have, in foreign investment and trade. | ||
| I've gone on several trade missions. | ||
| I know my fellow governors have. | ||
| And that becomes a lot harder if there are these barriers to trade that our own administration puts in place. | ||
| In many ways, tariffs would just be like us stabbing ourselves and stabbing our own economy, a self-inflicted wound that would raise prices, increase inflation, and destroy jobs. | ||
| You talked about these trade missions. | ||
| You've gone on lots of governors, do those kinds of things. | ||
| But what role do governors have to navigate the trade world? | ||
| What are the tools that you guys have to, if these tariffs do start to come in, to protect the people in your country? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I wish we had more. | |
| They're the prerogative of the federal government. | ||
| I mean, unless there's some new policy that gives us tariff-free zones or the ability to do something along those lines, products made in Colorado, products made in Iowa, products made in Texas, they're all American. | ||
| And so when there's reciprocal tariffs that are put on those products in foreign markets, it'll destroy jobs in our states. | ||
| And there's not much that governors can do about that. | ||
| So you can't really work around the trade policies and try to build bridges to foreign countries and not physical bridges. | ||
| That would take a lot of time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We do our best to build the bridges, but the money is where the rubber meets the road. | |
| And if it is prohibitive tariffs that prevent transactions from occurring and damage the markets for made in American and grown in America products, there's nothing that governors can do to open those markets. | ||
| I want to move to immigration. | ||
| Your state has become a flashpoint for immigration. | ||
| But even before this new administration came in, you have welcomed the federal authorities into the state to, quote, detain and deport dangerous criminals and to stop the quote illegal flow of guns and drugs. | ||
| But there's also been, it seems, kind of misinformation around some of the apartment complexes, which ones have undocumented immigrants, people who are documented and getting pulled into those things. | ||
| How do you strike that balance as a governor of that state? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Colorado is home to immigrants from communities all over the world. | |
| And we're very excited. | ||
| It adds to our economy, it adds to our prosperity, it adds to our culture. | ||
| At the same time, of course, we want to apprehend and punish any criminal, whether they're fifth-generation American or whether they got here a week ago or whether they got here five years ago. | ||
| If you want to commit crimes against our fellow Coloradans, we're going to find you and hold you accountable. | ||
| And we appreciate federal help in doing that for sure. | ||
| We work with the FBI. | ||
| We work with many federal agencies every day on keeping Colorado safer. | ||
| My goal as governor is to make Colorado one of the 10 safest states, and we have some specific investments and increased criminal penalties that we've been working on over the last few years, and we're continuing that work with our legislature this session. | ||
| Where are you at now? | ||
| You want number 10. | ||
| Where are you at on the safest list? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're in the middle of the pack. | |
| So we're in the 20s and we're a little lower on violent crime, a little higher on property crime. | ||
| But we've made some progress. | ||
| We've decreased automobile theft by over 20 percent in the last year. | ||
| You talked about wanting to get the criminals, any criminal in the United States or in Colorado. | ||
| But the Trump administration has said they view a criminal, undocumented immigrants, as someone who just came over here. | ||
| They don't have to commit a violent crime. | ||
| They don't have to break into a car. | ||
| Do you agree with them or are they wrong there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we're responsible for state law, and obviously civil violations are not criminal violations under state law. | |
| So we're concerned with things: are they engaged in theft? | ||
| Is there abuse or homicide? | ||
| You know, those kinds of things, drug dealing. | ||
| Those would be state offenses that we would want any help in apprehending criminals who engage in those things. | ||
| So you don't see an undocumented person in your state automatically as a criminal? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, unless they violate any state laws. | |
| I mean, you know, again, we care about who violates our laws, whether they're new to our state or, as I said, whether their families have been there for five generations. | ||
| It really doesn't matter. | ||
| If they violate our laws, we're going to hold them accountable. | ||
| You were sent a letter from Republicans in Congress from your state that essentially said if you were serious about curbing illegal immigration to your state, you would push the state legislature to repeal laws that restrict state and local governments and law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. | ||
| Would you push the Democrats in your legislature to do that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You look, I think our laws reflect, by and large, the laws we need to make Colorado one of the 10 safest states. | |
| We're pushing for additional criminal penalties in some areas, like stolen guns. | ||
| But with regards to cooperation with federal authorities, absolutely. | ||
| On criminal matters, we fully cooperate with federal authorities. | ||
| But should the laws be changed? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they allow for that and they encourage that. | |
| I mean, what we don't want is we don't want the federal government to co-opt our local law enforcement for their purposes rather than for our purposes. | ||
| We need to keep them focused on preventing crime and keeping the public safe. | ||
| They're not designed to become, nor should they become, an extension of the federal government. | ||
| Are there red lines for you when it comes to the federal authorities coming into your state when it comes to immigration? | ||
| Are there things you just won't accept? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, again, we have a strong collaborative relationship with all the federal enforcement agencies, whether it's FBI, DHS, ICE. | |
| They are a part of keeping Colorado safe. | ||
| I would add a small to medium part. | ||
| I mean, the role of the local police, the role of local sheriff's departments is even more critical. | ||
| But especially on large interstate investigations on major drug rings, on major gang activity, the federal government really provides additional resources that some of our local law enforcement agencies can really find helpful in making Colorado safer. | ||
| But are there any red lines that you would not accept from the federal government coming into your state? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, again, we fully cooperate in all criminal matters. | |
| If they're doing things that aren't criminal, first of all, I'm not sure what they're doing because that's not their charge, but they don't get the same cooperation, and we don't want to distract our local law enforcement from going after criminals and keeping people safe. | ||
| So they're not generally going to cooperate on non-criminal matters, and we hope that that's not what they're pursuing because we have, like most states, we have serious crime and we need to keep our limited law enforcement resources focused on keeping Colorado safe. | ||
| You started moving, busing undocumented migrants who came to your state to New York or Chicago, saying that that's where they wanted to be and you were trying to help that. | ||
| You eventually stopped once other mayors, when mayor said, please, this is too much. | ||
| How do you process this all under kind of the Toronto? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, I think we were also, I would add, to be fair, we were also subject to having people bust to us from Texas. | |
| So they were. | ||
| But you were the Democrat that continued. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then we found that these are people that didn't want to be, they didn't want to be in our state. | |
| So we said, where are you going? | ||
| And we helped them get there. | ||
| And, you know, it was a large movement of people, and a lot of people were, if you go north from Texas, you know, Denver is going to be your first major city. | ||
| So a lot of people came through, and some stayed for a few days, and some stayed for weeks, and obviously some chose to make Colorado their home. | ||
| I want to move to kind of this idea that I've heard a lot from both people here and in the states that the Democratic resistance to the Trump administration lies on the shoulders of yours and Andy Bashir and other Democratic governors. | ||
| They don't have a lot of power here, Democrats, in Washington, D.C. | ||
| But there seems to be for you places that you want to work with Donald Trump or see that there's places of compatibility there. | ||
| What are those? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, one of the ones that I know we're exploring as governors is permitting reform. | |
| And obviously we welcome, just as President Biden supported a permitting reform and wasn't ultimately able to get a major package through. | ||
| He did some things through his executive actions. | ||
| We're hopeful President Trump continues in that vein to make it easier to build and get things done from rail and highway to renewable energy projects and energy transmission, especially on public lands, which is a big deal in the West. | ||
| About 36% of our state is owned by the federal government. | ||
| It's even higher in Nevada and Utah. | ||
| But also with regards to the NEPA process for projects that occur on private land. | ||
| Do you have a relationship with President Trump? | ||
| Have you talked to him before? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Of course. | |
| Well, he was president. | ||
| Well, first of all, I served in Congress when he was president for two years, and I served as governor when he was president the first time around. | ||
| My only discussion with him since being elected this time is to call and congratulate him, which I did after the election. | ||
| Where are the places that you have concerns about what the Trump administration has been doing or wants to do? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you touched on one, and that's tariffs. | |
| It would be devastating the American economy, increase inflation, destroy American manufacturing, hurt American farmers and ranchers, and it would be an enormous self-inflicted wound. | ||
| I'm hopeful that President Trump finds an off-ramp. | ||
| I'm hopeful that it's a negotiating tactic, and that if we end in a place with less tariffs rather than more, that will ultimately benefit the American people and the American economy. | ||
| Anything other than tariffs? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we look forward to seeing what their plans are in different areas. | |
| I'm sure there'll be others. | ||
| Obviously, this whole funding slowdown and sloppy cutoff was scary for a while, and there's still several accounts that haven't been turned on, and these are generally contracts that are out there. | ||
| We're all for increasing government efficiency and getting a better work product for less money. | ||
| But usually, the best way to do that is not to just instantly cut it off. | ||
| It's to figure out how to change it to make it work better. | ||
| You've also been outspoken about the 14th Amendment repeal executive order that he tried to sign as well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that was illegal, unconstitutional. | |
| The courts have ruled accordingly. | ||
| Obviously, the clear language of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution is that if you're born here, you are, in fact, an American citizen. | ||
| I want to get to Doge a little bit. | ||
| You told Chuck Todd that you didn't think Elon Musk or Vivek Ramaswamy, who's no longer involved in Doge, had the political sophistication to cut spending. | ||
| We've had a month of Elon Musk and Doge firing and dealing and working their way through the federal government. | ||
| How are they doing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, my vantage point is the states. | |
| I'd probably know more about it if I was still here in Congress. | ||
| You get the emails. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I get the emails. | |
| No, I'm not on their email list. | ||
| You don't get our emails? | ||
| We send a lot of emails about Doge now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I thought everybody unsubscribed for. | |
| She's like, yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Isn't that the new thing Doge found? | |
| Is everybody subscribed to Politico and they made them cancel their own? | ||
| No, people love Politico. | ||
| No, they love Politico. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know. | |
| Everyone loves Politico. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They canceled a lot of subscriptions. | |
| But we're still standing and everyone's still subscribing, so we're not worried. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, what we need to see is kind of what they're finding and what they're doing. | |
| There's a lot of waste at federal agencies, and I applaud any effort to root that out. | ||
| And I think a better way to do it would be kind of more zero-based budgeting. | ||
| Say, what is it that we need to accomplish with this agency? | ||
| A, do we even need to accomplish it anymore, or is it counterproductive? | ||
| B, if we do need to accomplish it, pretend it doesn't exist. | ||
| How do you create the most efficient possible system to do that for the least money and to do it the best way from the ground up? | ||
| And then kind of juxtapose and replace the old with the new. | ||
| The way that they seem to be doing it is just sort of tearing down the old without necessarily having a more efficient way of doing it. | ||
| So, you know, not necessarily the best way to get the same, a better outcome for less money. | ||
| For those like Governor Polis who care about Doge, maybe aren't getting the emails. | ||
| Politico.com backslash West Wing. | ||
| We're launching a new Doge-focused West Wing playbook. | ||
| So get on it. | ||
| I'll send it to you. | ||
| I'll send it to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would like to be on that. | |
| Yeah, please do. | ||
| Please do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We want to learn from those efforts of the states about how we can make state government more efficient. | |
| This has been a drive of mine since I've been in office. | ||
| So I recently repealed 208 old executive orders. | ||
| We got rid of them off the books. | ||
| We have a similar effort to get rid of unnecessary rules and regulations through our legislature. | ||
| This has been kind of work that I've been focused on since I've been governor. | ||
| And we want to learn, of course, from the federal partners. | ||
| And I would add that we, at the state level, if the federal government makes compliance easier in certain areas, we could cut, too. | ||
| So we literally have employees that just sit there to comply with federal requirements. | ||
| So I'd love to find a way where if they make the federal compliance requirements easier, we can then downsize the state people that are simply filing federal paperwork as their entire jobs. | ||
| In November, you sent out a long tweet about why you thought, or posts, posts, about why you thought RFK Jr. was a great pick for HHC. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So what was? | |
| R.F.K. Jr. was a great pick. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's Secretary Kennedy to you. | |
| Yes, Secretary Kenny, correct. | ||
| And to you as well. | ||
| And to me. | ||
| How it seemed like you backed up maybe a little bit on that after some blowback. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I didn't back up. | |
| I mean, some people thought it somehow meant that I agreed with them on some of the nutty stuff he believes. | ||
| I don't. | ||
| I'm obviously pro-vaccine. | ||
| My kids are vaccinated. | ||
| I am. | ||
| I'm excited because he's going to shake up HHS and really focus on chronic disease prevention, human health. | ||
| I mean, this is something that Democrats have been focused for in a while. | ||
| I've never seen Republicans take an interest in it. | ||
| I think RFK would have been a great member of a Democratic administration. | ||
| Obviously, I supported Kamala Harris. | ||
| I hope he's not too controlled by Republican special interests. | ||
| But they need to let him go to really focus on the health of the American people. | ||
| I mean, diet and nutrition affects so much, whether it's diabetes, whether it's what pregnant mothers eat, affecting the intelligence of their kids and the prospects of their kids. | ||
| And he said that's going to be his focus. | ||
| I take him at his word. | ||
| Obviously, I would oppose if he in any way interferes with people's ability to protect themselves from deadly diseases. | ||
| I would be among the first to criticize that. | ||
| We'll probably get a post, a social post. | ||
| You and Governor Pritzker in Illinois are at the front of something called governor safeguarding democracy. | ||
| You have former Republican governors on the advisory board of that, but no sitting GOP office holders. | ||
| Why is that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think it's hard. | |
| You know, politics, I mean, for people that are currently elected officials to do that, we'd love, and we welcome, by the way, Republican governors to join our efforts to safeguard our democracy. | ||
| But I think the fact that we have some former Republican governors does speak a lot to the credibility of this work. | ||
| Just maintaining, you know, separation of powers, judicial, executive, legislative authority, free and fair elections, all these basic values and tenets that are now more important than ever before, governors are very much in the forefront of standing up and protecting. | ||
| What's the outreach been to the GOP office holders, the folks that are actually governors now, and trying to get them on board? | ||
| And what have they said to you about saying, no, we're good? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think, you know, again, you'd have to talk to different Republican governors. | |
| I mean, I think that governors across the board respect our democracy. | ||
| They might express that in different ways, but there's times when that takes, you know, court actions. | ||
| There's times when that takes media and public relations campaigns. | ||
| There's times when it takes state-level policy in the absence of federal policy to protect our rights as Americans. | ||
| Pritzker yesterday in his State of the State says some things I'm interested in because you guys work together on democracy, what you thought of it. | ||
| He said, quote, I do not invoke the spectra of Nazis lightly, but I know the history intimately. | ||
| Here's what I've learned: the root that tears apart your house's foundation begins as a seed, a seed of distrust and hate and blame. | ||
| The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn't arrive overnight. | ||
| The authoritarian playbook is laid bare. | ||
| They point to a group of people who don't look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems. | ||
| He seems to be making a comparison there with the Trump administration almost explicitly and kind of what happened with Nazis. | ||
| And I'm curious if you agree with him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I didn't hear the speech, and I don't know the context of that. | |
| It certainly sounds very poetic there, the way he expressed that. | ||
| I mean, I would say, of course, I always speak out against trying to divide Americans based on anything. | ||
| I mean, a president, a governor, should unite people. | ||
| I mean, we love everybody. | ||
| In Colorado, we call it a Colorado for all. | ||
| It doesn't matter your race, your faith, who you are, who you love. | ||
| I mean, there's a place for everybody in our state, and I believe in our nation. | ||
| And I think a president that speaks to those higher angels of inclusion and support for everybody and everybody undertaking the great journey of life is somebody that could be a successful president. | ||
| And I would push back to any president that tries to divide Americans or get people to scapegoat our fellow countrymen for the problems that they might be facing in their own lives. | ||
| He said, I'm watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. | ||
| Are you watching with a foreboarding dread? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I prefer to watch with hope. | |
| I think we all should be hopeful about the future of our country, hopeful that our best days are still ahead of us rather than behind us, hopeful that the arc of justice will continue to bend towards justice. | ||
| And look, there's always a pendulum that swings back and forth, but America is a much more inclusive, supportive place for everybody than it was in prior times in our history. | ||
| I mean, look at how hard it would have been to be a woman seeking a professional career in the 1950s. | ||
| Think of how hard it was to be a gay or lesbian American in the 80s or 90s. | ||
| You couldn't even get married. | ||
| So we're making a lot of progress for all Americans, and that in no way is to the detriment of anybody. | ||
| It's to the betterment of everybody. | ||
| That Colorado 300 Days of Sunshine really got you through. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We do. | |
| Hopeful. | ||
| Yesterday, President Trump and his team, even from the White House official account, sent out a picture of him as a king. | ||
| And I'm curious what you thought about that. | ||
| Well, I didn't see that right here for you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, you can't say that. | |
| I suspect it was AI-generated. | ||
| Yes, it was AI-generated, I think. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Kings are not popular in the United States. | |
| We rebelled against King George. | ||
| It's our story we tell every 4th of July. | ||
| So that's not a very well-advised thing to do. | ||
| I mean, I can see political opponents of mine in Colorado often portray me as a king, but those are political opponents. | ||
| It would be a self-inflicted wound if I were to do it myself. | ||
| So America is a country that values democracy, Republicans, Democrats, independents. | ||
| And we don't have nobility or royalty, and most Americans are very proud of that fact that all Americans are created equal under the law. | ||
| And we do not support any form of monarchy. | ||
| Yeah, but we do have Beyoncé, so that is important to note there. | ||
| I want to get to, thank you for the clap. | ||
| I want to get to kind of your party and where you guys are right now. | ||
| And I'm curious if you think that, and I don't want to relitigate 2024 over and over and over again, but do you believe that the Democratic Party has a policy problem or a PR problem? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, that's a good question. | |
| We can talk about that for a while. | ||
| I mean, policy, there's Democrats that are all over the place on policy. | ||
| I mean, I don't expect that I would agree with, you know, a room of Democrats on policy. | ||
| Everybody would have their own ideas. | ||
| I mean, I think make your case and convince others and work to, in our state, you know, our focus has been lowering taxes, reducing regulation, improving our schools. | ||
| It's been successful. | ||
| Our economy is doing great. | ||
| On communications, I certainly, I don't know, again, Democrats is a big thing. | ||
| I mean, I think many Democrats should do a better job communicating in new forms of social media and podcasts. | ||
| And I certainly do. | ||
| I declared my candidacy for governor on Reddit. | ||
| I mean, that's just, I had to learn what conventional media was, Eugene. | ||
| I had no idea what the networks were or anything because that's where I live online. | ||
| But Democrats should do a better job doing that for sure. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But when you think about why, not why 2024 you guys lost, but why since then, when you talk to Democrats and Republicans, they're saying this party doesn't seem kind of listless and that it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere. | ||
| Do you believe that that's going to be a good question? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think Democrats are upset that we didn't win. | |
| Just a little bit. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, that's the main thing. | |
| So it's a lot of Monday night quarterbacking, right? | ||
| I mean, you didn't win and you're engaged in a deep analysis of what you could do better next time. | ||
| 2028 is right around the corner. | ||
| You're running for president, I assume? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't think so. | |
| Okay, I just wanted to try it a new way to see if you would have to. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I didn't hear that. | |
| Okay, okay. | ||
| I just wanted to see if you would do it. | ||
| But you are term-limited, so you can't run for governor of Colorado again. | ||
| Are you open to running for president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I still have two more years doing this job, so I'm very excited to run through the gates. | |
| We're doing some great work in Colorado, making Colorado safer and making housing more affordable is our other big priority, along with continuing to deliver on free universal preschool, which we're now in our second year of. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But are you open to running for president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't have any plans to even think about that, Eugene. | |
| I'm really focused on the job that I have. | ||
| Yeah, so you're taking it off the table. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It wasn't even on the table. | |
| Okay, okay. | ||
| We're just breaking news to people. | ||
| But the party does seem like it's kind of ripe for your style of more nuanced politics, right? | ||
| You talked about working with President Trump on some things and fighting against him on others. | ||
| If you had to describe a human who you think should be at the top of the ticket, what kind of Democrat would you be interested in voting for in 2022? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think just somebody that speaks to the needs and the aspirations of the American people and focuses on issues that matter around the kitchen table, reducing costs, reducing unnecessary government rules and regulations, making government more efficient, restoring America's leadership role here and abroad, which is looking at worrisome foreign policies of this president. | |
| So, a president that focuses like President Obama and President Clinton on expanding markets for made in America and growing in America products, reducing tariffs, free trade. | ||
| I mean, these are traditional principles that successful Democratic presidents have been fully behind and have led to tremendous prosperity gains for the American people. | ||
| And of course, that's what we need to do not only to win, but to govern effectively and to increase the wealth and prosperity of the American people. | ||
| Last question before I get in trouble with the producers back there. | ||
| What keeps you up at night? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I sleep pretty well. | |
| Good for you. | ||
| It's a great, exhausting job. | ||
| And, you know, I worry about the world situation. | ||
| I mean, obviously, tariffs is not just an American thing. | ||
| It sets off a global trade war to the detriment of everybody. | ||
| So, you know, it's everybody hurting themselves and their economy, and it could lead not only to a reduction in economic growth, but actually shrinkage of the global economy, increased poverty, and decreased ability to meet the needs of people across the world. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Governor Polis, thank you for your time. | ||
| I look forward to having a conversation in two years when you are done being governor, and you're talking about maybe running for president. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you going to run for president, Eugene? | |
| Oh, no, no, you don't want to. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you taking it off the table? | |
| Off the table, off the table. | ||
| I'm sending the table out. | ||
| The table's gone, too. | ||
| There's no tables. | ||
| Absolutely not. | ||
| Governor, thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good to see you. | |
| Thank you, Goose. | ||
| Today, Interior Secretary Doug Bergh, along with Governors Jared Polis, Kevin Stitt, and others, will speak to the National Governors Association. | ||
| They're expected to discuss energy reliability and resilience and how to reform and accelerate energy projects. | ||
| Watch live at 2:30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. to across the country. | ||
| Coming up this morning, we'll talk with Michael Knowles, host of the Daily Wire's Michael Knowles Show, and Prager Hughes, the book club, about his role in the Conservative Political Action Conference and President Trump's first month in office. | ||
| And we'll continue the conversation on President Trump's first month in office with Sirius XM Talk Show host Reese Colbert. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
| Join the conversation live at 7 Eastern this morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, or online at cspan.org. | ||
| Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | ||
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. |