Andy Beshear On What Democrats Need to Change

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bar but in what we're seeing in politics right now sadly it's it's not and i think it's so important for the moment we're living in in a moment of of maximum division this is a story about uh the guy who's lying naked beaten on the side of the road and everybody who looks like him and thinks like him and prays like him and votes like him walks right on by and doesn't help but the person who was raised to hate him and he was raised to to to hate the other person who looks different prays different thinks different and votes different is the guy that crosses over lifts him up carries him to safety and if you read it carefully pays for his health care moving forward he does right he does pay he does he pays for some uh for some treatment at the end uh so who are we not seeing as our neighbors right now who are democrats uh stepping over to get to the down the road well i especially when you when you think first about donald trump the idea of the uh enemy from within is the exact opposite of the the parable the good samaritan the idea that everyone is our neighbor but to donald trump it's only people who think like him and vote like him that deserve to be americans and everybody else are you people the the enemy i think as democrats we are doing better in this moment and you see that across america trying to see people as people that are suffering under uh tariffs that have added what forty five hundred dollars in costs just to buy the same stuff this year that you bought last year the price of diesel and gas has never been higher and so i think a lot of democrats are doing better because they're showing up and they're doing better and they're doing better and they're showing up and they're listening they're talking to people instead of at people yeah i guess something that we're interested in the question though because look we've seen for a very long time uh christian nationalist politicians sort of you know holding the bible in their hand and using it to justify uh what a lot of christians would say is uh uh unchristian right uh policies and politics but if on our side the parable just teaches us that uh well we're right we're right we're right about immigration like what are the places where you feel that democrats are not living up to the values of the good samaritan where are the places where uh you know to be you know in some sense like jesus is a radical what are the ways in which we are not being radical in defense of these kinds of values well a faith done right you're right it's challenging you know if you think that that you've done it all then you're just living that bumper sticker faith where you just check each of the the boxes uh what do i think we need to do i think we need to do more to make sure everyone in america has enough to eat and we were moving better in that direction until that big ugly bill kicked 25 000 kentucky kids off their food benefits so 25 000 kids in my state are hungrier than they were before i think we've got to figure out a way to where everybody can see a doctor when they're sick and obviously that's getting harder and not easier part of its cost part of its access so in kentucky i was able to open the first pediatric autism center in appalachia first time for me to be able to open the first pediatric autism center in appalachia in that area we're not told the best thing that they could do for health care is to move uh housing is a big one and democrats have gotten in our own way about housing you know overregulation and nimbyism have led us to a situation where the average age of first-time home ownership is 40 years old if you wonder why people are losing faith in the american dream it's that they can't raise their family in a house like they were raised in so i think in the future you know democrats ought to be making an aspirational investment in housing but tying those dollars to the speed at which you break ground so i think sometimes if if we think about mistakes that the democratic party has made it is a lack of urgency it's the idea that people need help right now and when we set up programs to provide that help there were so many rules in it and so many boxes to check that either it never came about or it took a really long time what do you think is the single most important thing that the federal government could do to uh build more housing what is the single most important thing that the federal government could do to uh build more housing what is the single most important thing that the federal government could do to uh build more like to to help address the housing affordability it's got to start with with funding because when we look at at funding you could run it say through a state's affordable housing trust fund and we leverage nine private dollars for every one public dollar so for instance in my last budget which the the republican super majority did not accept i was going to take 125 million dollars from our three plus billion dollar rainy day fund roll it through that fund and we create a billion dollars of housing uh that's out there and so a lot of this can get started um with that federal funding there's got to be the will but we've got to tie it to the speed at which you break ground right if the federal government did that the last thing a governor ever wants to do is give back federal funds uh mayors too but but just like federal highway funds are used it is a way that we could push through um that that uh over regulation and nimbyism so you lead the uh dga the democratic governors association uh uh first of all what are you seeing in terms of these uh uh governor's races in red states where are you most hopeful where do you think people should be paying more attention and we have one of the most exciting and challenging maps because it is uh so exciting that we've had in dga history uh first it looks like all of our incumbents are going to get re-elected and that's where you start in these organizations they're the folks that are helping us raise the money uh katie hobbs uh has has grown a lead uh tina kotech started out in a tough race and that's moving in the right direction i think that's going to be a big part of what you're doing and that's going to be a big part of what you're doing then you look at all the places we have a democratic governor and we want to protect their legacy um those are places like wisconsin and michigan and even kansas but i think we're going to win all of those you then move to the uh first group of flips that we thought would be in play say eight nine months ago and those are ohio uh nevada uh iowa uh and and georgia and and all of those are in play i think in the very least iowa uh and ohio flips are going to be in play especially after ramoswami has run the most despicable ad i think in political history incredible yeah it really is the most despicable ad in political history and i think the word i came to a little earlier today was revolting yeah because when you hear it you just you just pull back it is so far beyond the pale um and then and then uh we we are moving in the right direction in both georgia and nevada and i'd much rather be us than them and we got great candidates there what do you think about texas well said that's the next group of states that have come on and come on later it's almost like the the newest additions to red to blue if if if we were uh the d triple c and it's uh nebraska oklahoma texas and florida all in play or in that margin all with good candidates so uh you face some criticism for not putting more money into texas uh i believe dj has put in a million dollars uh some uh leaders down there uh we're pushing you to put in 10 million dollars uh what's up scrooge what's going on well i've got a size 10 budget and a size 16 map okay and texas came into play later than others and obviously texas is more expensive uh to move the needle it's also a direct give state so any of those big donors who might look at the dga can look directly at texas but we are working with gina hinojosa's campaign uh we want her to to have the very best shot uh and we also have to make sure that we continue our investments in places that we've been investing in you know for the last six seven months and we're going to have to make sure that we continue our investments in the next six months i want to go back to the the ramaswamy ad because i do think it ties back to what you're talking about in the book so vance has been on the stump and he's been defending the ad and he's been saying things like oh you know democrats are attacking us for being mean the ad is just uh uh he's trying to treat it like normal politics and what and and saying oh we're just so far beyond normal politics right but what i'm interested in about it is he seems to be trying to to tell the audience at these rallies that it's okay right like you don't need to feel bad about this we're not doing anything wrong well to to vance and to trump there is an us and a you people and i talk about this in the book uh to him everything is red or blue right if if you're in his red camp and someone would do something like this how dare you right it's terrible and it's wrong but if it's done to somebody in the blue camp then it's okay why because it's the ultimate othering of people and when you do that you're not doing anything wrong you're not doing anything wrong you're not doing anything wrong you're not doing anything wrong you're not doing anything wrong you're not you start dehumanizing them and then all of a sudden that justifies doing things to people that you would otherwise never do i mean this is an ad about amy acton's mom who married a man who sexually abused amy who was uh indicted and arrested for it and then fled the state and ultimately passed away in a different state her mom went with him did not believe her and she has not seen her since the day of the arrest and somebody would put her in an ad? it's just disgusting so and obviously I agree with that and I like clearly something has happened on the right that I don't think has an equivalent on the left right there's no like this is why I sort of come like you know but only Trump and Vance really are defending and I do want to give the Rob Portman's of the world and the Mike DeWine's who should rescind that endorsement like it's not enough just to say a horrific ad is horrific you cannot support the person who came forth with it I mean this is disqualifying for Ramaswamy you know his baseball swing was bad this is obviously a lot worse a person who would willingly put this on TV how can they be in charge of the state police which are investigating these types of crimes or the policies that would support victims of of rape and this was a child I mean she's basically putting on someone who is denying her own child's life and she's basically putting on someone who is denying her own child's life abuse and and you'd be willing to do that you can't be governor after that so I take your point so so you have Trump defending you advance if any you have the Ramaswamy camp defending it you have some big uh popular right-wing media figures defending it's a debate on the right right it's an undebatable question right but it's being debated on the right pretty sad uh we have to defeat this movement we have to agree we have to defeat it right healing a broken country in this case is not about yeah it's about actually kind of uh trying to leave him in the ditch a little bit here right I mean this is I think this is the part of the book where where we're trying to reclaim faith to do good right the idea that Vance would use it to divide as opposed to to unify and the idea is if if we are living out our faith in the way that we're actually called to do it um then hopefully that gives the grace in the space for maybe not the elected officials themselves but some of their voters to come back and so I think it's fine to judge Trump and Vance and certainly Ramaswamy but I tried not to judge their voters because I want this Trump era to be an aberration in history and not the new normal you know I want it to be viewed as McCarthyism 20 years from now and that we were able to do better uh but clearly there is a there is a portion of our country right that has become a bit enamored of this kind of dominance politics this kind of way of seeing the world right that like there is there is a there is something really toxic that is not just coming from Trump right Trump maybe makes it worse Trump maybe has built on it but he clearly has grabbed onto something that is in our culture something pretty toxic in not just I look it's it is all well and good for politicians to decry the ways politicians divide us but uh sometimes it's the supply sometimes it's the demand there is a demand in our country right now for this kind of politics a lot among a fair number of people there may be some but so much of of culture comes from the top that could be the CEO of a company or it can be the the president of the United States and I even see it at at at dinner tables and families talking about it that that before people wouldn't say certain things but when the most powerful man on earth acts the way that this president does it gives permission for other folks to do it too and through the book I talk about this we had a governor in Kentucky Matt Bevin who was Trump before Trump it did so many of the things we're seeing the president do now uh Pete Hegseth he called himself the watcher on the wall and would uh try to weaponize folks at anti-abortion rallies saying I had blood on my hands and people shouldn't keep their powder dry using the types of language um that that could incite violence but we were able to move beyond it all right we were able to not just defeat him in an election but lead in a type of way where seven years later as a people we're not divided like we were before and you don't see the same types of of of arguments and arguments and arguments and arguments and arguments and arguments and politics that we did then pod save America breaking news is brought to you by zip recruiter let's be honest zip recruiter is everywhere why because top talent is everywhere too just like you your ideal candidates are tuning into business sports and podcasts just like this one when these candidates hear all these ads it increases the chances of them going to zip recruiter and responding to your job post so ultimately you meet them sooner of course you can't meet them unless you go to zip recruiter.com crooked to try it for free once you post your job zip recruiter has a new feature that shows you the most interested qualified candidates first so you meet them faster no wonder four out of five employers who post on zip recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day but you've got to go to zip recruiter.com cricket to post your job for free again that's zip recruiter.com crooked oh and if you forget where to go don't worry you'll hear another zip recruiter ad soon enough you know you have this kind of divide in the democratic party a lot of the attention part because we have a lot of media that comes out of New York you know we've got a lot of attention on the lefties on the mom Donnie you know we've got a lot of attention on the righties and some of the more left congressional figures and arguments over some of their more extreme statements meanwhile and I'm going to say a word that is I would say unkind but I'm going to say that there's been a kind of way in which we don't pay enough attention to the boring governors though but like the Roy Coopers the Andy Beshears who are not as far left who are succeeding in states that are either swing states or red states and kind of drawing less attention and less conversation about what their success is drawn from and I'm curious what you think that success is right like you win in Kentucky by five points in a state that Trump won by by was it thirty point I mean just a huge thirty points the year the year right after so why do you think that that is how do you think that is possible what what what is what is the difference between what is the difference between how people see you and how people see Democrats nationally a lot first start by saying the way the way you started it was unfair but Marie Dowd who is one of the funniest people that I've met asked a similar question and she said well with all all the stunts and everything that's going on she said governor do you think someone do you think people will be drawn to someone like you that is vanilla hmm and I said well marine vanilla is still the best-selling flavor in the United States by sure that's true that's true so for me it's really a a three-part approach that I think has helped me be successful in Kentucky and it's being followed by a lot of other people around the country the first is I stand up for all my convictions but I spend 80% of my time on things that matter to a hundred percent of the people in my state and that is a job where you can afford the things you need it's your next doctor's appointment it's the roads and bridges you drive the public school you drop your kids off at and whether you feel safe in your community now people want their elected officials to be focused on their everyday lives and by following an 8100 rule I'm disciplined in the way that I not only run but that I govern that shows people their lives are getting better you know we build a new road that saves you 20 minutes each direction you got 40 more minutes with your family we build the first hospital in our largest african-american community in 150 years and it serves 60,000 patients in its first year the first pediatric autism center in Appalachia those are the types of things that lift everybody up and leave no one out the second thing I try to do and I think you all have have have discussed it is to talk like a normal human being the advocacy speak that had gotten into the democratic party's lingo made us sound like we were lecturing made us sound like we were preaching that we were talking at people instead of two people but the third piece and I think it's the most important in post pandemic politics is is I try to get beyond the what the pro this or the anti that and to the why I think authenticity is so important now and to the what the pro this or the anti that and to the why I think authenticity is so important now and especially in a world of social media and people you know they can look up your policy positions but they really want to know you and that that's what the books about it's about my why what drives me I mean most people would look at politics and say why in the world would you ever get into it and they need an answer to that well part of this though is when you're the governor you're not really in the national debate and one challenge for national political figures is it's all well and good to say well I'm a I'm only going to talk about the stuff everybody likes and I'm not going to talk about the stuff people don't like but then all of a sudden you're being asked do you agree with what Gavin Newsom said about trans athletes and this candidate in New York said is that you know America is a source of evil in the world do you agree with that or do you disagree with that and suddenly you're in those conversations and you have to have either you have to have a way of having a view on those things you get asked those things but but you know the people the United States can agree or disagree with you on some things but they really want to know that you're focused on them and the concern about some of not those questions but the media is if the media makes you talk 80% of your time on those things that don't impact most people it can create that misperception and so I actually think governors have an advantage especially moving forward just in the fact that we have the receipts right if people really need new housing they can look to see if you've built it if people need a better job to afford what they need you can see our average wage for a new job in Kentucky is at an all-time high so I think as we move forward because remember Donald Trump promised a lot of things and then he did the exact opposite and people are going to start very very skeptical so I think the record is important but there's no question that cable news sets up outside of Congress right just rolls people through and and it's a tough sell to the American people who are hurting now because they're talking about voting on the amendment to the rule and how does that impact people's daily lives that's not Congress's But it creates a perception even of the Democratic Party that we're not getting things done. So speaking of Congress, Mitch McConnell was absent for 92 days. You said you had talked about the ways in which the rules have been changed to try to prevent you from being able to appoint a replacement if one was open. You ultimately said you couldn't fill the vacancy or call a special election if there was a unless there was a death or resignation or expulsion. But McConnell's back. Do you think that currently Kentucky has a working senator performing the duties and Senator Mitch McConnell? Yes. Sadly, I have real concerns over that. And first, I know online folks thought a governor, a state official could kick a federal official out of their job. And if you could do that, imagine what would have happened back in history or what would happen if Tallarico wins. But Abbott wins, too. I mean, there are really. Good reasons that a governor can't declare a U.S. Senate vacancy. And a lot of what was what was online just assumed he was dead. But the question is capacity. And there are very serious concerns. And I think this is why people think the Senate's broken. And by the way, he's the person who broke it. Because what you saw with Mitch McConnell is the willingness to change any policy or take any position if it went if it meant one more R than one more D in the Senate, which is why they're wheeling him in. Right now, so that there is one more R than one more D and I think the way out of this has to be at some point a fix the the government constitutional amendment, it ought to have term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court. If you did that, you'd end the gaming of the Supreme Court appointments. But I think it ought to go beyond that outlaw partisan gerrymandering, overturned Citizens United, banned stock trading by by certain public officials. If we would do that, I know it can be hard, but constitutional amendments have come out of times of turmoil before, and we're certainly in one of those. But we could actually offer a fix to the next generation and the one after and then maybe we would get back to seeing, say, Southern Democrats and Republicans working together on an issue that impacts them or in the West. It could be water rights or others and everything not just being an R versus a D vote. So I saw you told a story about the last time you talked. The J.D. Vance, it was some sort of he was an investor in Kentucky. He was there with Martha Stewart. Any more details about that was a company called App Harvest that was looking at doing indoor grow operations and built a number of big facilities in Kentucky. Ultimately, the company itself went under, though. We've had other companies come in and take over those operations. But it's a pretty odd room to be in Martha Stewart and a pre U.S. Senator J.D. Vance. Do you remember any? Any. Do you have any interactions? I have very minor interactions with them. I just said hello. But I think anybody who's followed me knows my feelings on J.D. Vance. Yes, it's a pretty harsh. What do you what do you say to him? You said a poverty tourism. Yes, that effect. So so J.D. Vance writes a book called Hillbilly Elegy claiming to understand Appalachian culture. Like the guy grew up outside of Cincinnati and I get he would visit his grandparents. But to claim, you know, Appalachia and to judge it, to call the people lazy, to call the the the drug epidemic, the the the fault of the people of Appalachia when opioid companies were flooding communities with hundreds of pills for every man, woman and child is is wrong. But J.D. Vance looks down on everyone. And when I'm thinking about my faith, it always hits me that the people who manipulate the Bible typically believe that the Bible is the word of God, like he's overseen the translations, but they add words to it. Right. So judge not lest ye be judged, period. Not unless you look different, vote different, pray different, love different. And that's what you see. So many people who are trying to hijack faith do. One of my pastors once said, you know, your faith has been hijacked when suddenly your God hates all the same people that you do. But it's also so nice, you know, now you've this book go and do likewise how we heal a a broken country. It is part of a tradition of potential presidential candidates writing a book, an autobiography on their way to a presidential campaign. I'm not going to put you on the spot about that unless you'd like to talk about it. I don't have any announcement today, but I will say the book is not a traditional autobiography. And I was unwilling to do one because oftentimes that's whining about your parents. And I had great parents. And have I had different challenges in life? Sure. But I've been blessed in so many different ways to have a great family of my own now. And so, as you know, the book is about a challenge that's been before me or our state in my time as attorney general or as governor and how faith has guided me to hopefully help somebody instead of hurt somebody in those instances. You know, you've been on the show several times. You have this obviously important perspective as someone who's figured out how to build a winning coalition in a red state. I often feel like I want to understand the ways in which you like, you know, you talk about doing the things that 100 percent of the people want to do or 80 percent of people want to do. But, you know, you're here at a time in which Democrats are running against the worst president in any of our lifetimes at a time in which they've launched a war without Congress. They've put on tariffs that have made America's main concern worse. The Republicans in Congress have looked past all of this corruption and we're desperately trying to fight to victory right across the country. There are places where it's going to be really close. And I and I feel like there's a lot of people who look at that and say, you know what? Like, I'm really frustrated with the Democratic Party and I'm looking for people that are going to challenge the Democratic Party. And I'm curious about, like, what are the places where you feel like you're sort of angry about the direction of the party, where you feel as though you want to convince Democratic voters that they've been. Getting something wrong, like where are the places where you want to reshape this party in some way? Well, I think that the party has got to be more pragmatic and less ideological. You know, the idea is that people are suffering. Our job ought to be to help them now. So often in the Democratic Party, if you don't have the exact perfect set of views said in the exact right way, then you can feel excluded. We need to make sure that this is a party that more people want to join. And the way we do that is by focusing on people's everyday needs that right now they feel are not being met and having a real sense of urgency. Are there examples, though, of that? What are the things where you say, like, you know what? Like, this is where I feel like the National Democrats have been getting it wrong. Well, you can go back to the Internet for All program in the Biden administration, which, when it passed, was going to be a game changer for Kentucky. Think about areas of Appalachia or far western Kentucky where we don't have the number of jobs we'd like to. But if you have high speed broadband, everywhere, you can live where you love and work for anyone anywhere in the world. So we celebrated that. But they put so many rules and regulations in place. We had to bid out who was going to do the work down to a microscopic level before we ever got the money. And it took so long. It never happened. Right. We are four years from the time when Congress said this is the infrastructure of right now and everyone desperately needs it right now. And there isn't one inch of fiber in the ground. So we've got to be a party that gets results. So is that and we haven't always been. Is that because of union rules, environmental rules? Like, what is the criticism? Like, what is. Way too many rules. You know, pick pick and choose. But you what you're saying that, like, Democrats are beholden to certain constituencies. Like, I want to know the places where it's like this is going to be the hard part of the conversation. Well, it was it was even it was even the start. You know, a person in that administration once said to me, we're going to do it slow, but we're going to get it right. If you do it slow, you might not get it done at all. And so I really think it's been it's. It's it's been almost a technocrat approach. If that were me, what would I do? We get the money to the states. We'd have all the rules, but then we would audit them like let people get after it. We've far too often looked for perfection, like the plan has to be 100 percent perfect on all these levels instead of if we've got something that's 80 percent. Let's start doing it right. Let's actually get the results. And we haven't been a party of urgency. And I think now we can be. So the original Kentucky fried chicken restaurant is in Harlan Sanders Cafe Museum in Corbin, Kentucky. But in 1968, Colonel Sanders and his wife opened the Claudia Sanders Dinner House in Shelbyville after they grew unhappy with changes to the recipe after he sold the company. If I want original Kentucky fried chicken, where do I go? Do I go to the cafe or do I go to the dinner house? Yeah, you go to the cafe, OK? Yeah. And the dinner house, they just sold off a lot of. Oh, really? Yeah. So I sometimes have to look at people and say, you know, Kentucky apologizes for Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell, but we did give you Muhammad Ali and Colonel Sanders. That is pretty good. That is pretty good. Now, I do want to end with a very brief quiz. We're calling the audacity of tropes. I'm going to read you a title and you have to guess the author. OK, first, these are political biographies. I will fail this badly. America, a redemption story choosing hope, creating unity by a South Carolina senator who dropped out of the twenty twenty four GOP primary who the twenty twenty four GOP South Carolina. Mm hmm. Lindsey Graham, it was Tim Scott, Tim Scott. Let's see a call to service. My vision for a better America. He was a Massachusetts senator who served in Vietnam. Ooh, I'm going to fail this one, too. John Kerry. That's where I was going to go. It was John Kerry. Let's see. A time for truth. But I thought you would have said a presidential candidate. Well, these are all presidential candidates. A time for truth reigniting the promise of America. Hint, born in Canada, famously visited Cancun. Ted Cruz. That is Ted Cruz. The truths we hold, an American journey. Hint, only ran a campaign for 107 days. Mark Warner. Kamala Harris. That was Kamala Harris. Oh, that was her book before her first race. And finally, failing badly, doing terribly. Finally, this is Herman Cain. Herman Cain. That's right. You got it. That's right. I appreciate the title of that book. That was good. So I should have titled my book Andy Beshear something. Andy Beshear something. Well, thank you for coming out and talking to us today. Is there anything you think people should be doing in this homestretch? We've got these competitive Senate races across these red states. You've got these governor's races. What do you think is the most helpful thing for people to do right now? I think at this point, it's volunteer. And whether that's phone banking or knocking on doors, it is now time to get people out to vote. What you do online is important, but clicks don't equal votes unless you actually get those people to the polls. And there are lots of candidates that need help. And it's not just these big Senate campaigns. It's your school board and everything in between. Now, this is the time for our generations. To protect our democracy, I think people are called on to do it every couple of decades. And so it's critically important that we get out. There is a chance for this to be a historic election. It's a chance to be a historic rebuke of Donald Trump. And we've got to make sure that it is. And one to ten odds you're running for president. I can't set those odds because I still got to have a pretty important conversation with my family sometime after this election. All right. Governor Beshear, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.