Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY): "Go And Do Likewise"

0:00From kickoff to the final whistle, trade the biggest moments in football on CalShi, America's number one prediction market platform. Denver is currently trading at 40% to upset Los Angeles, meaning a $100 trade pays out $197 if they win. Download CalShi, use code FAL to get $25 when you trade $25. KALSHI, CalShi, trade on anything. 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. CalShi products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see CalShi.com slash regulatory. For a limited time, you can get a big Mac meal for just $8. That's a burger, fries, and a drink. They don't call it an extra-value meal for nothing. Get a big Mac meal only at Mac dollars. Pricing participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Hi, it's Michael Smirconish. Welcome to Book Club with Michael Smirconish. A collection of Michael's favorite interviews with authors from the last 30 years

1:03through today on the air on radio. What sets my book club apart is that I actually read the books. Book Club is now in session. Last night I spent my evening with Governor Andy Beshear from the great state of Kentucky because he has just published a memoir. It's called Go and Do Likewise. Go and Do Likewise. The title coming from and the theme of the book coming from the parable of the Good Samaritan. There's a lot of buzz about Andy Beshear. And I left last night convinced he will run that he will run. That's what I was going to ask you. Yeah. There's not too much doubt in my mind that he's going to take a shot at this. Had you met him before? I'd not met him before. I had interviewed him here on a podcast at the time that he was launching his own program. As he said to me last night, we both have a show on Series XM. You're the one who gets paid. I think was his was his line. The conversation then this was all backstage before we went out and conducted business. But the conversation also addressed

2:07bourbon. And I made that clip. Okay. I won't say it. Okay. I won't say it. I won't say it. I won't. When that true. I died. It's true. I died at that exchange. All right. Well, let's not let's not give away. Well, I'll say this by way of background. But what's he like is what I want? I'm going to lay it all out. I thought it was interesting with. With Audi. You know, like Mark Halpern asked you about it yesterday. And I'm just very, very curious about what you think about him. Because I feel like he he comes he comes across to me as a very decent earnest honest. Then he can't win. Good guy. That's how he makes a very he makes a very. Has once people people last night loved what they heard from him the night before. He was a GW and got a standing ovation. I read in in playbook. So here's was sold out sold out in minutes. Yeah. So let me just say this. This is the the scene is that it's the main branch of the free library of Philadelphia. Or maybe it's the Philadelphia free library. But it is

3:10you know, it's if if you know the city of Philadelphia, it's on Logan Circle. It's beautiful. There's a an auditorium with a few hundred seats in it. And from time to time over a period of years, they have asked and I've always obliged to interview some of the authors. They usually invite me in a political context. When Secretary John Kerry wrote a memoir and came in, I interviewed him in front of a live audience. When our friend Richard Clark came to the free library, I interviewed him. When Chris Matthews came to the free library, I interviewed. I probably shouldn't start this because I'm going to forget people unintentionally. I'm either a few of the many. When Steven Levy wrote his Facebook book. Remember he's embedded himself in Google. He's embedded himself in Apple. He embedded himself in Facebook. Hopefully now he's embedding himself in in Elon Musk's one of his companies. I remember being backstage. This was the day of the release of his book written about Facebook. When Mark Zuckerberg

4:10texted him with his review of the book. I've had some interesting moments there. They run a tight ship. I like that too. It's like 50 minutes of questions that I deliver and 10 or 15 from the audience and we all go home. They sent me the audio last night and the thank-thank- them very much for that. But I laughed when I opened up the file because it was literally 59 minutes long. I was like, and great. I love this point. The invitation that I received was from the library, but also from Governor Bashir's office. He specifically wanted me to do the interview. Now I know because he watches a lot of CNN and because he's on Sirius XM and because I'm a known quantity to him. My interest in doing this is what I've already told you, but also, and you're going to hear this in the first exchange. I wanted to see what's this guy all about because Donald Trump three times has won by landslides in Kentucky. Maybe not a big surprise. It's a Ruby Red State,

5:12Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell, are the United States senators and somehow in that same context, in that same time period, different elections because the municipal state elections are different from when we elect Congress and when we elect a president. So it's not as if Bashir was on the ballot with Trump, but nevertheless in the same era that Trump three times wins Kentucky hugely. Bashir wins first as Attorney General and then as Governor for two terms. So he's, you know, at the end of his second term as the Governor of Kentucky. And I started the questioning last night by going immediately there. They are here for the recipe. They want to know what's in the secret sauce because here's what they know before they read the book. They know that you're a Democrat, they know it's a Ruby Red State, they know that you won three times statewide Attorney General twice as Governor and that somebody else also has covered that state and carried it three times. Your margins

6:18were slim. His, his averaged 29 points. So how do you get it done? What's in the secret sauce? That's the way I normally introduce myself when I travel as I say I'm Andy Bashir. I'm the Democratic Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. And people always ask me the same question. It's the one word. How, how do you win in a state that Trump won by 31 points the last time? How do you beat Mitch McConnell's hand pick candidate by five points? How do you beat candidates to candidates that Donald Trump is not only endorsed, but when he came in to support a Republican incumbent filled up Ruperina with people the night before the election. So for me, I think it's three parts. Number one, I always stand up for my convictions. I vetoed every anti-LGBTQ plus bill that's come to my desk. I vetoed anti-choice bills that have come to my desk. vetoed anti-union, anti-diversity bills that have come to my desk. So I stand up for all my

7:21convictions, but I spend 80% of my time on things that matter to 100% of the people of my state. It's the idea that when most people wake up in the morning, they're not thinking about the next race. They're thinking about their job and whether they make enough to support their family. They're thinking about their next doctor's appointment for themselves, their parents, their kids. They're thinking about the roads and bridges they drive, the public school, they drop their kids off at, and whether they feel safe in their community. So if I move the needle on any of those things, we're not moving something to the right or the left, we're moving it forward. Right? We lift everyone up and leave no one out. So that's part one. Part two is I try to talk like a normal human being. It's the idea that if somebody has lost a member of their family to an overdose, they don't refer to it as substance use disorder. They call it addiction. Why? Because the word has meaning. You can feel the loss in it. Or if someone's in recovery, the same thing, they've gone up against that most difficult adversary. And we've got to make sure that we talk the same way when we govern and when we're running that we would at a dinner

8:26table. But the third one is one of the reasons I wrote the book. Democrats are really good at the what? Right? We can tell you policy point two, sub point three, bullet point four, eye, eye, underneath. But we need to get a little bit beyond just the what to the why. Why are we willing to deal with the toxicity of politics? Why are we making a decision that some may disagree on? If we're just pro this and someone else's anti that and neither of us are talking about the why, we can't move beyond it. And so we talk through the book, my why is my family and my faith. I try to stand up for what's right because I think that's what we're called to do. Sometimes I vetoed bills just because they're mean. And that's enough for me. But what I found over and over is if you show voters who always are never vote for you the respect to tell them not just what you're doing but why you're doing it. You can create some grace and some space to open new conversations. And again, someone support even if they might. So back in a real time, this is my conversation,

9:29or at least a portion of it with Governor Andy Beshear last night in Philadelphia at the Philadelphia free library. You heard his reference to faith. And I told you the title of the book comes from the Good Samaritan parable. I'm going to play a clip for you in a moment where he explains this. And as he's speaking and because I've digested the book and something funny happened yesterday in that I was reading a commercial. I'll tell you right now what it is. I was reading a commercial for the Freedom from Religion Foundation. And going through my mind, and I say this to Governor Beshear is I get why this works in Kentucky, you know, to be grounded in one's faith, to cite scripture, to speak of the New Testament. He is the son, his grandfather and great-grandfather were both lay Baptist ministers. And I wanted to know, can you sell that, that non-secular view to the nation at large? So listen to the way I get into this. It's the first of two passages.

10:32This is clip two that deal with this subject. Parable of the Good Samaritan as sort of the thesis and framework of the book. So I love the parable of the Good Samaritan for so many reasons, but the title go and do likewise. That's the last part of that Bible passage. Because there's the story in the Bible. But after he's done telling the story, Jesus looks at the crowd and says, now go and do likewise. That it's not a story, it's an instruction. And so what is it an instruction of? So in the story, there's a man lying, bleeding naked on the side of the road. And everybody who looks like him and thinks like him and votes like him and prays like him crosses to the other side, ignores his suffering and walks on. But Jesus chooses someone who was raised to hate this person. And they were raised to hate him. To be the hero. That walks across the side of the road, picks this individual up, carries him to safety. Oh, and if you read it closely, pace for his health care going forward.

11:35And just this idea that we are called to love our neighbor as ourself, that even somebody so different than us is our neighbor strikes me. It's that idea that our neighbor is not the enemy from within, but someone that we're called to love. And one of the things that led me to write this book and it's in the very first chapter is it's not a story I've seen it in real life. So in our first chapter, it's after the floods of 2022, worst flooding we've seen in my lifetime, maybe ever in Kentucky, killed 45 people. Before that Texas flood, floods didn't kill 45 people. And I'm in a town called White Spurg that took two days to get to because the water had been so high. And I'm in a house, and this woman, Elisis, furiously mucking it out because you're running against the clock in flooding. You know, you don't get it mucked out and dried out, the mold sets in and your house is done. And so I make an assumption and I make a wrong assumption. I look at her and I say,

12:37it must be tough seeing your house like this. She said, no, it's not my house, it's my neighbors. And I make another wrong assumption, you know, over two here. I say, well, it must feel good that you've already finished with your house. She said, we haven't even started. I thought I'd start with my neighbor. So in this toughest moment for her, when she hadn't even mucked out her child's room, when all of her kids' toys were laying in front of her house, she decided to start with her neighbor. See, that's who I think we are as Americans. And the toughest of times we are good to each other, it's all this divisiveness that's pushed down on us. So I hope this book offers people hope, but also a reminder of who we're supposed to be. Alyssa looks straight at me without even a hint of judgment in her eye and said, we haven't started on my house yet. I thought I'd start with my neighbor. As she turned to go back to work, she added almost as an aside, will get to mine later. A lot of scripture in this book, a lot of biblical references. Do you think that

13:42Democrats have ceded the language of faith? I think Democrats have ceded for many years the language of, you can call it faith, you can call it values, you can say, live in goodness through your actions, you can put it in so many different ways. But to allow others to quote scripture, or to invoke the name of Jesus or any faith, and then cut food assistance to kids. I mean, the idea of a big ugly bill cut 11,000 Kentucky kids off their food assistance. When the miracle of the fishes and the loaves is in the first four books of the New Testament, meaning it's pretty darn important. The idea that Jesus says a doctor is for the sick, but that same ugly bill is going to shutter up to 35 rural hospitals in Kentucky, meaning a lot of people aren't going to be able to see a doctor when they're sick. And to me, it's not just calling out people who are claiming something, and then doing the opposite, but trying to explain what drives me to try to do right by my fellow

14:45human being. And I think that's in every faith or every value set. It could be the way that people are raised, but my encouragement to Democrats is start talking about that authentic why. Start talking about what drives you to run into that wall every day, knowing one day it'll fall, and you can really accomplish something when it does. Back in real time, can this work nationally? You're listening to Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, Democrat from the great state of Kentucky. He's won three statewide elections, one for attorney general, two as governor. As I say, small margins, you know, a couple of thousand votes. Donald Trump, meanwhile, wins the state by an average of 29 percentage points in three straight elections. He wears his faith on his sleeve. He tells you that's his moral foundation. I thought it kind of begs the question of how does that impact his decision making? And wouldn't it be interesting to have him respond to one of our radio advertisers? Listen to this exchange. So I suspect that that approach has served you well in getting elected

15:51statewide in Kentucky three times. Is it too non-secular an approach for a broader audience? Not if it's real. Right now, we're in an age of authenticity in politics. People know if you're real, if you're driven by the things you're talking about, or if you're just being transparent about them. When Donald Trump at this, what do we call this convention? The Trump of Paloza looks at everybody and says, you know what happens if you don't vote, any means vote Republican. He says, you go to hell. I mean, openly, transparently, trying to manipulate religion, and you see it's not real there. It's also the way that he holds the Bible. If you remember that, suggesting he's never held it nor read it before. What I think people need to do in an age where people want to see that video of you explaining something directly to them, talking about who you are, being more vulnerable and wrong than people have had to be in politics for a long time, they want

16:55you to talk about what genuinely drives you. So, James Tallerico, it is faith, like it is for me, and you can tell when he's talking about it. The Senate candidate in Kansas, same way that you see there. Josh Piro, the governor here, talks about his Jewish faith in such a positive and real way, Amy Acton, who's running in Ohio, talks about how she and her brother were homeless, living in a tent and they would walk to school and a woman would feed them every morning on her porch. And that's why she's doing what she's doing now, trying to look out after people. In the introduction to the book, you say, in this book, I will share how my faith shapes, how I see the world, and why I still have the hope in these divisive times. I want to pursue this just one degree further. So, I've had Governor Andy Beshear on the brain because of tonight getting together. Thank you for this privilege. I appreciate it. Today, I had a radio commercial that I read aloud. I don't know if I'm catching you cold with this, but have you ever heard Ron Reagan Jr.

17:57do the freedom from religion commercials where at the end he says, I'm Ron Reagan Jr. not afraid to burn in hell. Have you ever heard those commercials? Not. Okay, even though you're a serious XM guy. Okay, trust me. You're going to hear them. So, the freedom from religion folks came to me and they said, we'd like you to read the script. And I said, oh, I go to church on Sundays. I don't think I'm going to be cool with this. And then I read the copy. So, I want to read aloud to you and parse this and just see how it is. Okay, religious freedom is not religious privilege. How you feel about that? Religious freedom is not religious privilege. Oh, I think that's fair. Okay, the freedom from religion foundation works to keep state and church separate because that separation protects believers, nonbelievers, and everyone in between. It also ensures free thinkers, atheists, agnostics, and non-religious Americans are not left out of the American story. Is that fair?

18:59Yes, when I talk about, yeah, absolutely. When I talk about my faith, it's not to impress it on anyone. I respect all faiths. I respect if someone chooses not to have faith. I respect anyone who finds whatever it is in them that pushes them to do good, to help their fellow human being get up as opposed to kick them while they're down. But I do also believe in that first amendment, if you have a chance to explain that to the president, please do. He's struggling with it at the moment where I do think though people want to know what motivates you. So, I'm not trying to put Christian faith directly into law, but I am trying to tell people what pushes me to get up every single day. Why I veto anti-LGBTQ plus legislation. The idea that if I am taught that all children are children of God, shouldn't we be protecting all those kids out there instead of

19:59making life harder for them? Okay, back in real time, that's my favorite exchange of the night. And Andy Beshear is everywhere. He's everywhere right now because he's got a book out and people think he's running for president. I certainly do. This will sound self-congratulatory and I guess it is, but nobody else is asking him, how do you feel about the Freedom from Religion Foundation commercial? I'm very confident that that is a true statement, Michael. And I thought, I think, I thought he handled it beautifully. I thought he handled it beautifully. And there was no, that was not something that he was expecting. And for him to handle the way he did was impressive. I thought he was, and I thought because the book is so rooted in Scripture, it warranted questioning about, well, how does this impact the way in which you'll govern? You heard him say, I'm not here to impress it upon everybody. I respect those who are not of faith. I'm trying to tell you what makes me get out of bed every day. Yeah, what about the nuns? And no NES, that was important. Governor Beshear will be able to draw, you know, they filmed it for YouTube. He'll be able to draw on that exchange to the extent this issue should be raised in the future. If necessary

21:04in the future, because I gave him the opportunity and I think he handled it very well. Okay, let me stop there and do a gut check and open the telephone lines and just ask people, what do you make of what you've heard so far? I mean, what I find most impressive about him is that he's been able to get elected three times statewide in Kentucky. And I know I keep saying that, but it's impressive. But he's also had to govern on some of the most culturally provocative issues, the LGBTQ, the trans issue, he had to confront. He had to veto what he regarded as a vehemently anti-trans bill. And he did. On the abortion issue, he took a pro-choice position. There's a whole backstory. That's awfully simplistic. So I'm saying he's maintained in those issues what you'd regard as a more progressive identity. And it hasn't cost him. I said to him last night, why were you able to veto the anti-LGBTQ plus bill and not be

22:08taken down politically in the way that Kamala Harris was by an ad of, you know, he's for they them. And he answers that. Maybe I'll play that for you as well. Andy Bishur, Andy Bishur, what do you make so far? I'm at the usual number. Call me quickly though. I want to play more audio. 855486, 1776. Could you see him? I mean, I don't know what the lane is. I don't know what the lane is on the Democratic side of the aisle. It looks a little crowded because to me, he's one of the more moderate. He's Josh Shapiro. He's Ramamanuel. He's certainly not in the AOC, Bernie Newsom lane. So I don't know how much traffic can that lane sustain. 855486, 1776. I've been sleeping in CozyEarth's bamboo stretch knit pajamas, changing into them as officially the best part of my night. I love how silky, smooth and buttery soft they feel. The second you put them on, I use mine every single night because they're naturally temperature regulating and breathable so that you stay completely cool without ever waking up hot or clammy. They're crafted from visco's from bamboo

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27:22or visit lifesourcewater.com. Hurry offer in September 30. warranty limitations apply. Okay quick reaction on what you've heard thus far from my conversation last night with Governor Andy Beshear. Missy you are in Kentucky give me your reaction. Good morning long time listener. Andy Beshear is one of the most genuine people I've ever personally met and worked for on his first governor campaign. He is a fighter for the people of our state. He has been my pick for many many years in every election he's ever ran in. My brother in Vermont is a huge Andy Beshear fan and he plans on voting for him as well if he should run. So when I walked in this morning T.C. said

28:22well how was he and I said genuine. I thought he was a genuine decent individual. I don't sense any phoniness about the guy and if I did I'd tell you or I'd stay silent. This is Tom. Tom is in Kentucky what did you most want to say Tom? My who a long time listener first time caller I just so excited that you got to talk to the best governor in America last night echo your previous caller governor Beshear is just one of the most genuine people I think anyway you talk to him in Kentucky most of us I think have met him personally. He could be a really transformative president for us at this moment in time. The question now I'm wondering is he too nice for this environment because if you remember Tim Schreiber was on this program a couple of days ago he of the unity index and advocated for people to incanded it for him's dignity indexed what did I say unity oh okay which by the way it's pretty close right dignity index but Tim Tim said we should be asking

29:27candidates at all levels of government how will you treat your political opponents and guess what I put the question to Andy Beshear last night and I'll make sure that we I'll make sure that we play that as well Don not in Kentucky but in the great state of Maine what did you most want to say about Andy Beshear? I'm an Andy Beshear fan I love the way he thinks I like the way he governs and I think politicians on both sides of the aisle could learn a lot from him and I don't think there's any such thing as being too nice to be present I am I am I am not cherry picking the calls I'm just taking them as they come John's in Lexington are you gonna make it for for four thumbs up on Andy Beshear? nope two thumbs down okay tell me why? Yeah he and Tolerico are really at the critical to the Christian faith and actually they're hurting the Christian faith Tolerico said that the archangel came to marry and stick with stick with Beshear because when I get Tolerico here

30:31you can call me about Tolerico no no I'm just saying that he's right they claim faith they want to wrap themselves in faith and then they have anti Christian rulings like the LBG 2 2 you know letting children mutilate themselves and he's sure to support that having men compete in women's sports he supported that I addressed I addressed I addressed both of those you know what TCI want to do because we're going to we're going to make sure that we release this conversation as a book club this is me reflecting on being with Andy Beshear tell me if we can do this Ajara you you ready to go on this idea how about if the book club release is this conversation and the totality because you have the tape for sure okay so we release everything what we're going to Ajara you cool with that so you're going to release this hour and then the full tapes so that everybody can hear everything and do you want it as one podcast another one will do this and then yes you know we'll just say

31:34just button them together yeah cool okay another clip democratic socialism I asked Andy Beshear last night whether democratic socialism is the future of the democratic party let's listen let's rattle through a couple of contemporary issues okay is the future of the democratic party democratic socialism the future of the democratic party are democratic governors and and it and it is an answer to this question uh Donald Trump promised the American people that he'd make life easier than he'd bring down costs and he has done anything but that he said he'd stay out of foreign wars and he's done anything but that right now voters don't believe anybody in politics but democratic governors have the receipts at a time when we desperately need more housing we're out there actually building it at a time that things cost too much we have the highest average wage for a new job this year ever in the Commonwealth of Kentucky while the federal government is trying to

32:39cut health care I was able to open to pediatric autism centers in Appalachia to where people are never told the best thing they can do for their families to move in our largest traditionally African American neighborhood west Louisville we open the first new hospital in 150 years so Democrats are doing the democratic governors are doing things every single day and we don't get to fall in neat buckets like are you progressive or are you moderate we must be pragmatic and that's got to be the future of the democratic party people are hurting too much right now uh for for a democratic party uh that is more focused on ideology than results right we've got to admit where we did some things wrong we've over regulated in areas like housing which have prevented us from increasing the supply of of housing the internet for all program which was amazing there isn't one inch of fiber in the ground because of that in that program because so many rules were put into it the future

33:41of the democratic party has to be one of urgency of effectiveness and of actually making life better for people okay I respect that answer but among younger among younger Democrats surely you've seen the data that I have seen where socialism is held in higher regard than capitalism and I'm talking about people who'll be voting for the next 50 years what would you say to them well I believe that you're seeing that because they believe our current system of capitalism is broken all right they're looking at the American dream which I think has made this country exceptional it hasn't always been available or as available to everyone as everyone else but that idea that if you work hard and play by the rules you can raise a family you can leave your kids better off you can buy a home you can take your kids on the same vacation that you went on that is not possible right now and so with a with a system that doesn't seem to be working a lot of people are looking elsewhere I think what we've got to do is make that system work again I believe that the next president needs to make an aspirational

34:46investment in housing it can't be drips and drabs over time but we ought to tie those dollars that come to states and cities to the speed at which you break ground if you're not building that housing showing people that there is a better future those dollars come back to the federal government and as a governor or a mayor will tell you the one thing we never want to have to do is send money back to the federal government we also have to show these young voters that we can make government work again and for me the big idea there is we need a fix the darn government constitutional amendment and I know that that some people say oh they don't happen very often but they come out of times of turmoil and I think we ought to put a number of things in it number one we ought to outlaw partisan gerrymandering right there in the constitutional so let me let me say that he make that point about gerrymandering and and I I don't have time to play it but you'll hear it when we release all of this on the book club podcast but I then did ask him about open primaries

35:46we don't see eye to eye we do not see eye to eye he did he did not embrace my view of open primaries which this audience is well acquainted with I did point out to him 45% of Americans according to Gallup our independence as compared to 27% D and R relative to his answer about democratic socialism like Josh Shapiro like Rama manual just not willing at least at this point to have a sister soldier moment to lay down a marker and to really differentiate himself from democratic socialists he's not going to get their support the first of them that does it is going to be rewarded that lane will be too crowded if they all get in it and maybe you've got a Markelli in that lane there are any number of people you maybe Mitch Landryu is in that lane as well there there's too many of the more centrist Democrats I made a faux pas last night with governor Andy Beshear it came before the interview but I shared it for the audience I'm smiling only because before

36:47we came out we had a conversation backstage I don't know how the subject came up it's bourbon I said I am bi he said what do you like I said Jack Daniels he said that's whiskey and it's Tennessee but the stuff you can't make up by the way one one more thing on Canada if I so there you go and the one more thing on Canada is I'll tell you this as well I said to him David El Cohen the last United States ambassador to Canada was recently my guest and the two of us had a con you're reaching for something if you have it right there yeah play it yeah the former United States ambassador to Canada is David El Cohen many people in this room know and I'm sure respect him I've had this conversation with David wonder if you agree the first foreign visit of the next finish my sentence has to be to Canada absolutely has to be to Canada yeah okay well again you'll listen to the podcast and you'll get you'll get the full explanation there's another clip that I must play for you after a very brief intermission and then again I'll take your pulse on what you're

37:53hearing from Kentucky governor Andy Beshear let's talk about my friends at legacy box preserving your family's memories shouldn't feel like another chore on your to-do list it should be simple and that's the philosophy behind legacy box they take something most of us have been meaning to do for years and they make it remarkably easy legacy box they send you a kit you know what the kit is it's an empty box and in it you put your tapes films photos DVDs whatever media you've got and then you ship it off to them there's a barcode system you track it every step of the way it stays in the United States and when you get your originals back now you also get a thumb drive and everything is in the cloud and now you get to relive all those happy memories make sure you're doing what I've already done protect your legacy with legacy box by visiting legacy box.com slash Michael legacy box.com slash Michael get started today by texting 64000 you agreed to receive recurring automated marketing messages from iqbar message and data rates may apply no

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43:06special guests songs and stories from every era beginning tomorrow channel 32 and year round in the series xm app included in most subscriptions when i was 28 i started a business for 20 years you know i ran that business and never once did i really ever think about so meet Michael Ruck owner and founder of Carnegie point helping business owners with annual revenues of 10 million to 200 million sell for top dollar what started it he met some smart guys hey you ever think about selling i'm like no i'm 46 years old why would i want to do that the smart guys crunch the numbers and he was shown the truth he sold his business for a lot more than he ever imagined then take months after i've sold my business i got diagnosed with Parkinson's my largest customer has earned a degree imagine if he had never sold he saw a need and built Carnegie point what i want to do is help entrepreneurs unlock the value of their business and create generational wealth not even thinking of selling i guarantee it's going to be

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45:10option start ready stay ready with lens seek apply at lendaseek dot com that's le and s e e k dot com michael smirk on it okay one more clip from my conversation with governor andy bashir last night here in philadelphia you remember the tim shriver was recently a guest on the program talking about the dignity index i thought to myself this is a perfect opportunity to do what we discussed here on pote's within the last week or ten days which is if you get an opportunity to ask someone running for office how they'll comport themselves on a civility basis then take that opportunity and here's what i said last night i have another day one ish kind of question tim shriver was a guest on my radio program this week is the chair of the special olympics son of unis son of sergeant shriver who founded the peace core and was george mcgoverin's running mate his latest project is something called dignity the dignity index and he's encouraging people to try and promote civility

46:14by at public forums saying to a candidate this is in the context of if you should run will you treat your political opponents in that cycle with dignity and respect oh amen that would be a good type of politics and we've we've seen at least some of those examples in in kentucky when i ran for for governor i didn't have a pass i had a big or or a contested primary i had just been attorney general i've been standing up to a governor that had done actually about ten years before so many of the things that trump is doing now i admit i felt in the beginning like i i'd earned this right i had the battle scars i've gotten up every day put on the armor thinking we were probably the Spartans thankfully we ended up being the Athenians at the end but i got a tough primary a guy named rocky akans who had been the floor majority and the minority leader was in that race but what i remember about that race is we didn't attack each other we didn't kick

47:14each other we actually talked about the issues of the day while the third person in the race attacked both of us at the end of that race i asked rocky to be my senior advisor he worked with me for seven years one of the best parts of that team and if we'd have run that race differently i would have lost out on an important part of that administration and i'll tell you that civility is is is critical and i think it can just start with basic courtesy i mean we see people right now who will walk into a room and refuse to shake people's hands you know i was taught that if you walk into a room and you see somebody you hate right your blood boils you've got to go over and shake their hand because if you don't it says something about you not something about them and i'm worried my mom's still watching so my personal view is that that which most ails our society is societal disconnect and that what we most need to restore is common experience and figure out how we can put

48:15the pieces of society our parents and our grandparents they were joiners right they were in the mousse lodge they were in the lions club they were in rotary and we don't have that connectivity we live in an age of connectivity and we've never been so disconnected and it's had a disastrous impact on our kids your reaction so i've got a 17 and a 16 year old so pray for me social media has some possibles it also has some real negatives and just the stress that our kids are growing up in even outside of this i mean the stress of school shootings the stress of the news that's coming down every day the stress of democracy and and they're living through all of that if we are going to do better by our kids we're going to have to listen to them more because school wasn't like this when i went i didn't have the pressures of social media i remember when somebody said something nasty about you i thought the whole world knew well now they put it on a

49:18video on instagram or tiktok and the whole world can know people can be mean on a whole another level and so as we craft the right policies we got to stop calling people young leaders because i think that's just purge orative and just invite them to the table as leaders because that's the only way we're going to see and hear the experience that we need and you're right our parents and grandparents weren't on snapchat um but i do think back if we go all the way back to covid i missed my grandparents in their generation my mom's dad served in world war two and i couldn't imagine if the greatest generation had been there at the time and people had said no i don't want to do any of this they'd say we went to germany right we went to europe we fought for the future we just need you to stay home for a couple weeks and and so we missed that that generation okay but i want to hear you say the word mingle we need to mingle oh hi can you say the word so i can play it on radio tomorrow

50:20here's what we need to do we need to mingle okay there it is andy bishir there's much more to the conversation there's a detailed answer that he provided on how he vetoed the anti trans bill as he put it there's conversation about abortion kentucky was was one of those states that was poised and ready to go should roe versus way be overturned a very restrictive law was ready to be implemented and he did that it's there's a tragic story that he told actually two tragic stories that he told last night one about a woman named hadley duval who was 12 years old when she was impregnated raped impregnated by a family member and chic and and when the kentucky legislature sought to impose this restrictive abortion bill she came forward to film a commercial for andy bishir and he tells the story of saying to her if you're here to do this for me don't don't do it if you're here because

51:23you want to tell your story by all means tell your story another tragedy you might remember April of 2023 there was a mass shooting in louisville at the old national bank which hit home for the governor because one of his closest friends was murdered and it then fell to andy bishir to explain to the wife who he knew was now a widow that her husband was gone and when he goes and he tells the story in the book and he he shared it last night he knew that you know there's always a delay because they're they need a dna confirmation before they can notify the next of kin and so forth he knew the guy was gone when he told the wife she was disbelieving so we're going to release this hour which is my commentary i was very impressed with him very impressed i don't know where the lane is i believe he's running that's my takeaway i think he's running i don't know where the lane is and i found him to be a very impressive individual this is book club with michael smirconish from serious xm from kickoff to the final whistle trade the biggest moments in football

52:28on koushi america's number one prediction market platform denver is currently trading at 40% to upset loss angeles meaning a one hundred dollar trade pays out one hundred ninety seven dollars if they win download koushi use code foul to get twenty five dollars when you trade twenty five dollars kael s hi koushi trade on anything eighteen plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply event contract trading eval's risk it may not be suitable for all investors koushi products are not available in all jurisdictions prices values and available markets may differ from those mention for more information see koushi dot com slash regulatory hey what's up guys it's hailey baili okay i need to tell you about something i just got youtube premium it's got tons of awesome features like offline downloads so i can download my favorite videos before i travel and watch them whenever i don't have wi-fi because we all know aeroplane wi-fi is the worst i get ad free i get back room play and there's like a ton more in there you should try it if you like youtube you'll love youtube premium try it now for two months free at youtube dot com slash premium trial eligibility varies terms apply camp plenty time that's a mouthful

53:36three o'clock kids are home your to-do list isn't done new craft mac and cheese power mac was made for days like this craft mac and cheese power mac packs the same irresistible creamy cheesy flavor you love now with seventeen grams of protein and six grams of fiber fuels you up keeps you going because your day doesn't stop craft mac and cheese power mac find it at your favorite retailer the best thing ever keeps getting better your sausage my muffin with egg didn't change you're receipt it the sausage my muffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just five dollars only at McDonald's for a limited time price and participation may vary promotion price and maybe lower than meal pricing the michael smirk on his program listen weekdays at nine a me's done potez serious xm channel 124 and anytime on the serious xm f good evening ladies and gentlemen governor bichier welcome to fill it alfia i'm excited to be in fill it alfia this was the very first part of the book tour

54:38that completely sold out so thank you all for welcoming me the way you have they are here for the recipe they want to know what's in the secret sauce because here's what they know before they read the book they know that you're a democrat they know it's a ruby red state they know that you won three times state wide attorney general twice as governor and that somebody else also has covered that state and carried it three times your margins were slim his his averaged 29 points so how do you get it done what's in the secret sauce that's the way i normally introduce myself when i travel as i say i'm andy bichier i'm the democratic governor of the commonwealth in kittucky and and people always ask me the same question it's the one word how how do you win in a state that trump won by thirty one points the last time how do you beat michael mcconnell's hand pick candidate by five points how do you beat candidates two

55:39candidates that donald trump is not only endorsed but when he came in to support a republican incumbent filled up ruporina with people the night before the election so for me i think it's three parts number one i always stand up for my convictions i have vetoed every anti-lgbtq plus bill that's come to my desk a vetoed anti choice bills that have come to my desk vetoed anti union anti diversity bills that have come to my desk so i stand up for all my convictions but i spend eighty percent of my time on things that matter to a hundred percent of the people of my state it's the idea that when most people wake up in the morning they're not thinking about the next race they're thinking about their job and whether they make enough to support their family they're thinking about their next doctor's appointment for themselves their parents are their kids they're thinking about the roads and bridges they drive the public school they drop their kids off at and whether they feel safe in their community so if i move the needle on any of those things we're not moving something to the right or the left we're moving it forward right we lift everyone up

56:41and leave no one out so that's part one part two is i try to talk like a normal human being it it's the idea that if somebody has lost a member of their family to an overdose they don't refer to it as substance use disorder they call it addiction why because the word has meaning you can feel the loss in it or if someone's in recovery the same thing they've gone up against that most difficult adversary and we've got to make sure that we talk the same way when we govern and when we're running that we would at a at a dinner table but the third one is one of the reasons i wrote the book democrats are really good at the what right we can tell you policy point two sub point three bullet point four i i underneath but we need to get a little bit beyond just the what to the why why are we willing to deal with the toxicity of politics why are we making a decision that some may disagree on if we're just pro this and someone else's anti that

57:41and neither of us are talking about the why we can't move beyond it and so we talk through the book my wife's my family and my faith i try to stand up for what's right because i think that's what we're called to do sometimes i vetoed bills just because they're mean and that's enough for me but what i found over and over is if you show voters who always are never vote for you the respect to tell them not just what you're doing but why you're doing it you can create some grace and some space to open new conversations and again someone support even if they might not agree with you on everything why the parable of the good Samaritan as sort of the thesis and framework of the book so i love the parable of the good Samaritan for so many reasons but the the title go and do likewise that's the last part of that bible passage because there's the story in the bible but after he's done telling the story Jesus looks at the crowd and says now go and do likewise that it's not a story it's an instruction and so what is it an instruction of so in the story there's

58:43a man lying bleeding naked on the side of the road and everybody who looks like him and thinks like him and votes like him and prays like him crosses to the other side ignores his suffering and walks on but Jesus chooses someone who was raised to hate this person and they were raised to hate him to be the hero that walks across the side of the road picks this individual up carries him to safety oh and if you read it closely pace for his health care going forward and just this idea that we are called to love our neighbor as ourself that any even somebody so different than us is our neighbor strikes me it's that idea that our neighbor is not the enemy from within but someone that we're called to love and and one of the things that led me to write this book and it's in the very first chapter is it's not a story I've seen it in real life so in our first chapter it's after the floods of 2022 worst flooding we've seen in my lifetime

59:47maybe ever in Kentucky killed 45 people before that Texas flood floods didn't kill 45 people and I'm in a town called white spurg that took two days to get to because the water had been so high and I'm in a house and this woman elices furiously mucking it out because you're running against the clock in flooding you know you don't get it mucked out and dried out the mold sets in and your house is done and so I'm making assumption and I make a wrong assumption I look at her and I say it must be tough seeing your house like this she said no it's not my house it's my neighbors and I make another wrong assumption you know over two here I say well it must feel good that you've already finished with your house she said we haven't even started I thought I'd start with my neighbor so in this toughest moment for her when she hadn't even mucked out her child's room when all of her kids toys were laying in front of her house she decided to start with her neighbor

1:00:48see that's who I think we are as Americans and the toughest of times we are good to each other it's all this divisiveness it's pushed down on us so I hope this book offers people hope but also a reminder of who we're supposed to be Alyssa looks straight at me without even a hint of judgment in her eye and said we haven't started on my house yet I thought I'd start with my neighbor as she turned to go back to work she added almost as an aside we'll get to mine later lot of scripture in this book a lot of biblical references do you think the Democrats have seated the language of faith I think Democrats have seated for many years the language of you can call it faith you can call it values you can say live in goodness through your actions you can put it in so many different ways but to allow others to quote scripture or to invoke the name of Jesus or any faith and then cut food assistance to kids I mean the idea of a big ugly bill cut

1:01:5111,000 Kentucky kids off their food assistance when the miracle the fishes and the loaves is in the first four books of the new testament meaning it's pretty darn important the idea that Jesus says a doctor is for the sick but that same ugly bill is going to shutter up to 35 rural hospitals in Kentucky meaning a lot of people aren't going to be able to see a doctor when they're sick and and to me it's not just calling out people who are claiming something and then doing the opposite but trying to explain what drives me to try to do right by my fellow human being and I think that's in in every faith or every value set it could be the way that people are raised but my encouragement to Democrats is start talking about that authentic why start talking about what drives you to to run into that wall every day knowing one day it'll fall and you can really accomplish something when it does so I suspect that that approach has served you well in getting elected statewide in Kentucky three times is it too non-secular an approach for a broader audience

1:02:56that not if it's real I'm right now we're in an age of authenticity in politics people know if you're if you're real if you're if you're driven by the things you're talking about or if you're just being transparent about them when when Donald Trump at at this what do we call this convention the Trumpet Paloza looks at everybody and says you know what happens if you don't vote and he means vote Republican he says you go to hell I mean openly transparently trying to manipulate religion and you see it's not real there it's also the way that he holds the Bible if you remember that suggesting he's never held it nor read it before what I think people need to do in an age where people want to see that video of you explaining something directly to them talking about who you are being more vulnerable and wrong than people have had to be in politics for a long time they want you to talk about what genuinely drives you so James Tallerico it is faith like it is

1:03:58for me and you can tell when he's talking about it the Senate candidate in Kansas same way that you see there Josh Piro the governor here talks about his Jewish faith and in such a positive in real way any act in who's running in Ohio talks about how she and her brother were homeless living in a tent and they would walk to school and a woman would feed them every morning on her porch and that's why she's doing what she's doing now trying to look out after people in the introduction to the book you say in this book I will share how my faith shapes how I see the world and why I still have the hope in these divisive times I want to pursue this just one degree further so I've had governor Andy Beshear on the brain because of tonight getting together thank you for this privilege I appreciate it today I had a radio commercial that I read aloud I don't know if I'm catching you cold with this but have you ever heard Ron Reagan Jr. do the freedom from religion commercials where at the end he says I'm Ron Reagan Jr. not afraid to burn in hell have you ever

1:05:02heard those commercial okay even though you're a serious ex-M guy yes trust me you're you're going to hear them so the wonder if they're playing during my podcast so the freedom from religion folks came to me and they said we'd like you to read the script and I said oh I you know I go to church on Sundays I don't think I'm going to be cool with this and then I read the copy yeah so I want to read aloud to you and and parse this and just see how it's okay religious freedom is not religious privilege how you feel about that religious freedom is not religious privilege oh I think that's fair okay the freedom from religion foundation works to keep state and church separate because that separation protects believers non-believers and everyone in between it also ensures free thinkers atheists agnostics and non-religious Americans are not left out of the American story is that fair yes when I talk about yeah absolutely when I talk about my faith it's not too

1:06:06impressive on anyone I respect all faiths I respect if someone chooses not to have faith I respect anyone who finds whatever it is in them that pushes them to do good to help their fellow human being you know get up as opposed to to kick them while they're down but I do also believe in that first amendment if you have a chance to explain that to the president please do be struggling with it at the moment where I do think though people want to know what motivates you so I'm not trying to put Christian faith directly into law but I am trying to tell people what pushes me to get up every single day why I veto anti LGBTQ plus legislation you know the idea that if I am taught that all children are children of God shouldn't we pretend to be protecting all those kids out there instead of making life harder for from the book from from the book it seems to me that that every of our contemporary issues though those that that resonate have come across your

1:07:08desk you've had to deal with them yes I want to run through a handful that you address in the book let's start with covid for a year and a half it was your practice to not only offer a daily briefing but also to read the names allowed of the deceased like vice president Pence you are on the receiving end of death threats in your case I guess good that they couldn't distinguish between David Cameron and Daniel Cameron would you tell that story sure um governing through covid is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do but I knew it would be one of the most important this virus came to kill as many people as possible and I decided early on I'd asleep at night and I was going to make the decision that saved the most lives and if they ran me out of town afterwards fine this was just too important if it meant I saved 10 more lives and lost re-election by 40 I was willing uh to take that deal and so in the beginning everybody was was working together I even had our

1:08:12republican legislature going along on our republican attorney general a man named Daniel Cameron and so I'm in the midst of one of the updates and a small group of those that most rapidly disagreed a group that claimed that I stole my election that happened in Kentucky first by the way um and the wild part is the leader brought one of those trifold uh science project things to try to explain to the press how I'd stolen the election and it was well early in the night the other guy was up right it obviously didn't work very well but they're out there um trying to shout me down uh trying to scare me they actually um crack the uh bulletproof window uh they're beating on it uh so hard a reporter looks at me and says are we safe and I said yes but I wasn't going to let them and I had read the death list every day and I did and people who had lost someone that was

1:09:12important to them that their loved one was acknowledged and I did it every day because it was so hard I didn't want anybody else to have to like if if that trauma was going to be there I was going to take that and I wasn't going to ask anybody else though they offered to to help they saw how hard it was and I hadn't gotten to that point yet and I was going to get through that for everybody who was hurting who was waiting for that moment so after yelling first about COVID and then they started yelling about abortion um they decided that they weren't getting to me so they walked down to where they thought the attorney general's office was and of course they're outside the wrong window and he's not there why because he's staying healthy at home it's COVID um and they start chanting David Cameron David Cameron his name is Daniel Cameron but a week later he starts filing lawsuits why because 20 people who didn't know his name outside the wrong window were chanting

1:10:15and so to me it was just a defining moment of doing the right thing and I made the decision then I was going to keep me and me and doing the right thing and that was more important than any approval rating it was more important than any reelection but I tell you what that lesson has guided me better uh than just about anyone but it's it's hard to believe that I was on the recipient of about 20 lawsuits because of a crowd chanting the wrong name outside the wrong window as you look back and this is not a Kentucky specific question but just broadly the US approach do you wonder whether we closed too much too soon any regrets in that regard so true story I remember the call while where we were told to shut everything down and I mean everything it was a call with the White House team every governor was on it but the president wasn't going to have Fauci tell us this Donald J Trump himself told every governor to shut down the economy and everything else

1:11:19and most of us had reopened large parts of the economy before he came out and started attacking people so to this day I think about both that and he missed his first what I call Mount Rushmore moment could you imagine if he'd have actually followed the science and then we create the fastest vaccine in human history to get out of the pandemic he probably would have been reelected overwhelmingly all he had to do was was stay that course when I look back we did something early that I think everybody should have done the very first people vaccinated outside a medical professional should have been teachers should have been everyone inside a classroom and the moment that enough of those had been available every school in America should have opened we should have put that first but we couldn't and in Kentucky we did that I worked with our teachers organizations and associations and they were all in they just said we want to feel safe going in now the other

1:12:20factor though with schools in Kentucky is we have the most kids being raised by grandparents per capita of any state that's the only human being following those kids into adulthood knowing how important it was and if we didn't do this right that child brings home a potentially lethal virus to the one person that cares about them and where do they end up so it was complicated but of course I talk in the book about the most public mistake that I made during COVID two-pock two-pock yeah go ahead tell them I'm just gonna get to that so I learned during COVID that two-pock was still alive living in Lexington and he needed his unemployment benefits and then here's how it's it's early on a lot of people are watching our updates we just come off an update where we had about six million people watching we only had 4.4 that live in Kentucky and while I think I'm doing the right thing I was probably a little bit full of myself I will admit that I was

1:13:21feeling like Phil Donahue I guess I watch growing up and somebody comes in and says governor you won't believe it you know you told everybody to apply for unemployment if they needed it that we were all gonna get through but we're already seeing the fraud and I said what type of fraud and they said someone applied for unemployment benefits under the name two-pock Shakur and I got all angry I went out there and to six million people I said I can't believe it we're supposed to be together on this someone is already trying to defraud the system I finished the update and within five seconds a reporter walks up to me and he says you know there's a guy that works at a restaurant in Lexington that legally changed his name to two-pock Shakur and I thought oh bleep so I found his number that night I found his number that night and I called him and I didn't make a single excuse I was his governor in a scary time and I just run over him with a bus I

1:14:24still feel bad about it today his friends had all heard it they were all texting him right I'd made this guy out like he was a criminal and all he was doing is what I asked him to do and I just fully apologized to say it's entirely my fault he showed a lot of grace he told me previously voted for me you you made reference a moment ago to one of what you regard as president Trump's Mount Rushmore moments here's that passage from the book it was Trump's third Mount Rushmore opportunity the first being the success of Operation Warp Speed developing the COVID vaccine in record time he blew that by distancing himself from his greatest achievement of his first term in embracing the conspiracies his second moment came with the assassination attempt during the 2024 campaign all he had to say was something about how life is short and we need to be better to one another there's more to it but that's what you said a sad moment that you deal within the book if I can right before just to finish up that last one I want you to know that two-pock got

1:15:26his unemployment benefits faster than any other human being in history April 10 2023 a mass shooting that when I describe it people are going to remember in Louisville at the old national bank it hit home for you because you lost a very close friend in Tommy Elliott and then we're in the position of having to tell his disbelieving wife Mary Ann that he was gone the question that I ask is how if it all did it impact your second amendment view of the world it was one of the toughest days of my life and if you if you download the audiobook the hardest thing I've ever had to read I forgot that I talked directly to Tommy at the end of that chapter and getting that out was was tough Tommy was murdered as were a number of other people that day by disgruntled employee that we could put a lot of different laws into place and I'm not sure which of them would have

1:16:26stopped him or not but I would like us to do something I believe that beforehand but I also want to get something accomplished you know in Kentucky if you come out for an assault weapons ban everyone runs to their corners immediately and you can't even talk about gun locks I actually want to see some progress in Kentucky I'm pushing for a red flag law which is a lot harder to push for in Kentucky than a lot of other states because in the very least shouldn't we trust courts that we entrust with the custody of children to be able to determine if someone's about to go out there and murder someone else I want a safer world but I also know where I'm from that we have to start the conversation in some place where we can get enough agreement to get anything anything done but also learned a really important lesson going through that and that's that when you're governor you have to be governor I had to call Tommy's wife Mary Ann who's also a very good friend of mine because the

1:17:33length of time it takes for the DNA to come back is just too long and I knew he was gone and I didn't want her to have to wait to to find out I knew what I had to do and so I walked to the side of the restaurant that was our command center and I called her five minutes later I had to go to a press conference because this was my job and the people of Kentucky needed me and in the book I contrast Donald Trump after Charlie Kirk's shooting walking out after Erica Kirk who I disagree with on a lot but basically gave the most beautiful rendition of the golden rule at a time I'm not sure I could and forgiveness and he walked out and said now I disagree I hate my enemies yeah basically turn that golden rule around I knew that this was a moment that Kentuckyans were hurting and that while I was hurting personally a lot of people out there were hurting and it was my job to try to call for that unity I think that's when you find out who people really are let me go back to

1:18:34where I began in terms of asking governor Bashir what's the secret sauce because here's another issue that resonates today in 2023 your state's super majority passed a sweeping anti-trans bill they overrode your veto so why was it not politically toxic for you the Kamala Harris you know he's for you she's for they them why didn't that stick to you politically yes this is 2023 I'm running for re-election and that's why they did it I mean we had just had a state senator whose trans son had killed himself worried that something like this would happen and they passed the nasty anti-trans bill removing any rights of parents to decide any health care for their children and many other things while this woman is sobbing in the senate they're co-worker in just one of the meanest cruelest things I've ever seen on a floor of of any legislature or of congress and while

1:19:39they were doing it they said the quiet part out loud they said if anti-bashir vetoes this he will lose his re-election and you know what I did I vetoed it anyways some things are worth losing over but the reason that it didn't stick is I explained my why that night I said it earlier I went in front of the cameras and I said what I really felt I said my faith teaches me that all children are children of God and I just don't want people picking on those kids it's already so hard for them and if the legislature is going to show them hate I thought somebody had to show them love and if I couldn't do it who else was going to do it if they were going to show them judgment I wanted to show them acceptance I knew there were other kids like the son of that senator that were out there that were hurting that night and just at a very fundamental human level I wanted to be there for them but what I saw well by the way I did the right thing and I did not lose one point from that day on in that election but I describe in the book the next day I'm opening a factory because

1:20:43the next day you always have to be opening a factory that's the 8100 rule in action and a guy walks up to me trucker hat and all and I think oh my goodness I know what's coming but he reaches out of his hand I think that's a good sign and he says governor I'm not sure I agree with what you did yesterday but I know you're doing what you think is right he pated me on the back and said I support you and walked off I mean this is someone the day before it probably been anti something that I was pro but actually telling him my why led him to a different place and that's what part of the book is about if we can share that why maybe we can get beyond just starting in different positions and actually start healing some of the divisions in this country I want you to say something about this issue in the context of sports which you also address in the book especially because you're here in Philadelphia and and Leotamas at the University of Pennsylvania reducing trans individuals into a political issue gained steam in 2022 when Leotamas a transgender athlete won

1:21:45the women's 500 yard freestyle NCAA division won women's championship one of the primary voices crying foul belong to the University of Kentucky's own Riley Gaines and then there's more discussion I'm for inclusion not at the expense of competition that's the way I like to express it how do you how do you summarize your view sports have to be fair but you don't have to other someone to make them fair and you don't have to pass a law because my goodness do we really want Congress and charge of sports I mean that's concerning in Kentucky this wasn't an issue why because our Kentucky high school athletic association which I'm not always a big fan of actually had real rules in place they were very specific and they prevented any type of unfair competition without outing someone without othering someone at the time that that they passed this legislation we had one trans athlete in the entire state she was a seventh grader in middle school she had started a field hockey

1:22:50team it hadn't existed to make friends and I thought about that seventh grade girl a lot when I vetoed that bill because we can have the rules in place to to make high school sports and college sports fair but why do we have to make that seventh grader feel less than okay here's another one on my list there's a theme here governor the theme is how how can this democratic governor in a Ruby red state confront all of the cultural issues of the day and still get elected so let me put into the mix abortion yeah Kentucky was poised ready for the overturning of roe versus weight so the minute that it happened a very restrictive law is ready to go into effect and again you're put in the position of having to veto and go against your legislature and now steps forward Hadley Deval who is Hadley Deval let me start by just saying that veto was an easy one for me because women should be able to make their own health care decisions period

1:23:56now saying that most democrats hopefully most democrats will stand up for that and would make that veto but I'm the first democratic candidate or governor up for re-election to ever run what some people would call a pro abortion ad and most people would think that's crazy but no one likes extremism and what happened is because we had a trigger law when the dobs decision came out it became entirely illegal in Kentucky zero weeks only exception is for the life of the mother in other words no exceptions for victims of rape or incest that are rapist even right now in Kentucky has more rights than is victim and I think most people think that that's wrong but that had to be explained to folks in a way that really hit home so Hadley Deval at the time as a college student I think she's a junior she's probably 21 years old she looks like anybody's

1:24:57daughter or sister and when the dobs decision came out she noticed a lot of her family and her friends were posting these really positive things online and she was willing to share something from her past they didn't know so Hadley at the age of nine or ten her stepfather started raping her and she hadn't told her mom and at 12 she became pregnant as it turns out she had a miscarriage she did tell her mother he is in jail to this day where he deserves to be but when the dobs decision came out she felt like she had to talk and she makes this Facebook that's in the book that took so much courage saying you haven't stood in my shoes and one of my campaign folks John through has been with me a long time noticed one tiny TV story that picked up on it well we brought her in and she made an ad that is still one of the most powerful ads that I

1:26:01have ever seen she says to make someone have the child of her parent is just wrong and I walked in at the end of of her filming and I had the most important conversation that I had in the campaign I was attorney general at the time right I was standing up for victims of rape and incest we had solved our rape kit backlog which took us a while but it's something we absolutely had to do and here I saw somebody doing this and I said Hadley if you're doing this for me don't do it don't do it if you're doing this because this platform which is so important we'll put a lot of money behind it and she said Andy I'm doing this because there's a 12 year old out there right now just like me that needs my help in that moment she was living faith at least I saw it that way in an incredible way she was putting herself out there on the line she was putting her neighbor

1:27:03ahead of herself because here she is in Kentucky you know early in life and what were people going to say or do she went to a college that that most people call a religious college may have thought was conservative and she was going to have to go back after this ad played but she kept saying that you know that 12 year old that's out there deserves to have someone like me speak out for them and it was one of the most powerful things I've ever seen she's one of the most powerful people that I've ever met and when she went back to her senior year at that college she was worried about you know what they did they elected her homecoming queen for many for many their their pro-life position is grounded in their faith in the book you say I also wonder how Christian it is to demand a woman carry a pregnancy to term well then also cutting her access to quality healthcare if she's on Medicaid and then going on to make it next to impossible for her to carry

1:28:05her child by cutting snap benefits and other aid does being pro-life only go as far as the delivery room you want to amplify anything on that so the core tenant of my faith is is of a loving God that calls on us to love each other and I think a lot of times the positions that some people take in the Bible are folks whose faith teaches them that it is the literal word of God yet they tend to add words to the sentences I mean it says because people are being judged who would consider an abortion judge not less yebe judged not comma unless you look different vote different pray different or make different decisions it says accept one another as crisis accepted you not with an asterisk in a whole list of things that you otherwise judge people on and it says love your neighbor as yourself period I mean my goal is to try to be as understanding as I can be knowing I

1:29:08have not stood in the shoes of so many people and to have a position that forces someone to do something and then does not give them the support to go through with it is is so challenging you know if if somebody is 100% pro life that they want to make sure that that baby is born why don't they want to care about the baby once it's in the world why are we making it harder for women to get prenatal vitamins why do we have such a high maternal mortality rate in a country as sophisticated as this one how could we say now everyone has to be a part of the world but we're not going to make sure you have enough to eat or that you can be healthy enough to enjoy each day in that world let's rattle through a couple of contemporary issues okay is the future of the democratic party democratic socialism the future of the democratic party are democratic governors and

1:30:12and it and it is an answer to this question uh Donald Trump promised the American people that he'd make life easier than he'd bring down costs and he has done anything but that he said he'd stay out of four in wars and he's done anything but that right now voters don't believe anybody in politics but democratic governors have the receipts at a time when we desperately need more housing we're out there actually building it at a time that things cost too much uh we uh have the highest average wage for a new job this year ever in the Commonwealth of Kentucky while the federal government is trying to cut health care i was able to open two pediatric autism centers in apple atcha to where people are never told the best thing they can do for their families to move in our largest traditionally african-american neighborhood west luva will we open the first new hospital in 150 years so democrats are doing the democratic governors are doing things every single day and we don't get to fall in neat buckets like are you progressive or are you moderate we must be

1:31:17pragmatic and that's got to be the future of the democratic party people are hurting too much right now uh for for a democratic party uh that is more focused on ideology than results right we've got to admit where we did some things wrong we've over-regulated in areas like housing which have prevented us from increasing the supply of of housing the internet for all program which was amazing there isn't one inch of fiber in the ground because of that in that program because so many rules were put into it the future of the democratic party has to be one of urgency of effectiveness and of actually making life better for people okay i respect that answer but among younger among younger democrats surely you've seen the data that i have seen where socialism is held in higher regard than capitalism and i'm talking about people who'll be voting for the next 50 years what would you say to them well i believe that you're seeing that because they believe our current system of capitalism is broken

1:32:19all right they're looking at the american dream which i think has made this country exceptional it hasn't always been available or as available to everyone as everyone else but that idea that if you work hard and play by the rules um you can raise a family you can leave your kids better off you can buy a home you can take your kids on the same vacation that you went on that is not possible right now and so with uh with a with a system that doesn't seem to be working a lot of people are looking uh elsewhere i think what we've got to do is make that system work again i believe that the next president needs to make an aspirational investment in housing it can't be drips and drabs over time but we ought to tie those dollars that come to states and cities to the speed at which you break ground if you're not building that housing showing people that there is a better future those dollars come back to the federal government and as a governor or a mayor will tell you the one thing we never want to have to do is send money back to the federal government um we we also have to show these young voters that we can make government work again and for me the big idea there is

1:33:26we need a fix the darn government constitutional amendment and i know that that some people say oh they don't happen very often but they come out of times of turmoil and i think we ought to put a number of things in it number one we ought to outlaw partisan gerrymandering right there in the constitutional how about we how about uh let me let me add one i'll call the McConnell amendment we ought to have term limits for congress and the supreme court one of the two of us on this stage is the lead plaintiff in an action pending in the commonwealth to open pennsylvania's primary system you for open primaries yeah i've thought about that a lot um in kentucky we we really only have two parties so we don't face it uh the same way i just want to make sure that whatever system we have isn't one where people gain the system right that you get uh good candidates that can have a good debate um i i'll give you another example of what should be in that constitutional amendment to fix

1:34:29some of the things we're seeing we ought to overturn citizens united and get dark money out of politics but but i do think that there is you know the the idea that independent candidates struggle um and we ought to be thinking about ways where where they do have opportunity in states because i think we're going to see more independent candidates and that's not a bad thing 45% tell gallop they're an i 27% say a d 27% say an r should we leave and end the conflict in Iran with anything shy of absolute assurance that they will not have a nuke so we have to in the war in Iran because thank you uh uh not only because we are losing lives we've lost two kentuckyans i'm going to a road naming of of of Ashley the second one here on Saturday it's it's very personal but also it is hammering our economy um tariffs are already causing families

1:35:34about forty five hundred extra dollars in cost right now gasoline is costing eight hundred extra dollars in cost but if you are in a rural community like kentucky primarily is you know the importance of diesel and diesel is at an all time high increasing the price of everything some of our farmers are even questioning whether they're going to plant our crops here's how we get out of it we send actual career foreign service employees who have spent their entire lives learning every nuance of an Iranian negotiator to that table and we get the president's developer buddy and a son-in-law off that table out of that room so that we can get a real agreement and we and we agreement i have to go and we can get that agreement but you know why it has to be an agreement where they cannot agree fully fully agree just one and we can get there because Barack Obama did it okay all right i i i would keep you here all night if they would let me but

1:36:39from the audience now allen mandalbaum says the following governor putting politics aside for a moment i suspect we may have one of the more unusual connections in the room tonight we're both lexington natives both graduates of henry clay high school and vander build both lawyers i actually had the good fortune of interning for your father when he was lieutenant governor though your mother and her connection with the university of kentucky medical center i also knew your family well enough that at one point i babysat you so i so my question i give him all credit for me being on this date well get get that's where he's headed so my question is a little less political and a little more personal did you ever imagine that the guy who wants babysat you would eventually be sitting here asking you a question on a national book tour and more importantly do you think i deserve any credit for how you turned out where there he is in the stand up thank you

1:37:42all right there are a lot of people that have influenced my life so i'm going to go with three percent credit okay from from scott steward if you decide to run and then win what are what he's talking about if you decide to run and then win what will you do on day one to begin the rebuilding of our relationships with canada and the you yeah both critical both day one issues it's hard to believe than in the span of two years we've gone from leader of the free world to the bully on the playground that donald trump went in front of the united nations and said to the winner go the spoils and basically might make makes right that is not the united states of america and as i've traveled and you do that as governor because of trade and investment i see the pain not just the disappointment

1:38:45but the pain of so many of our allies that have looked up to the united states of america i mean our alliances with europe have kept this world relatively safe for all of my life time the most important alliance we have in the world is with canada who has followed us into virtually every conflict we've ever gone into even when we're wrong they're also one of the largest purchases of Kentucky bourbon in the world and if i tell you what donald trump has insulted their nationality it's down 85 percent in canada and we are seeing job loss in kittucky that job loss is not canada's fault right they're banning together and i'm i'm proud of them forward the way because of the way they've been treated but think about this donald trump just through those actions it's cost in Kentucky jobs and he doesn't care at all i'm smiling only because before we came out we had a conversation backstage i don't know how the subject came up it's bourbon i said i am bibe he said

1:39:48what do you like i said jack daniels he said that's whiskey and it's tenisee but i the stuff you can't make up by the way one one more thing on canada if i may the former united states ambassador to canada is david elkoan many people in this room know and i'm sure respect him i've had this conversation with david wonder if you agree the first foreign visit of the next finish my sentence has to be to canada absolutely has to be to canada this is this is a president that talks about border security and then it's pushing canada towards china i mean that's just flat crazy and then when you look at at the per capita consumption of american goods canada is critically important there are number one trade partner it's for a thousand different reasons our economies being connected our people sharing this special bond this this is more than just alliance it's almost family that our that our countries are are almost brothers or

1:40:49or sisters that we have to repair it and we're going to have to win back the canadian people and what i hope they um... aneralize in europe c is the united states of america is more than its president and it's people strongly disagree with how this president is treating our most important allies i have another day one ish kind of question tim shriver was a guest on my radio program this week is the chair of the special olympics son of unis son of sargent shriver who founded the peace core and was george mcgoverons running mate his latest project is something called dignity the dignity index and he's encouraging people to try and promote civility by at public forums saying to a candidate this is in the context of if you should run will you treat your political opponents in that cycle with dignity and respect oh amen that would be a good type of politics um and we've we've seen at least some of those examples in in kinsucky uh... when i ran for for

1:41:51governor i didn't have a pass i had a big uh... or a contested primary um... i had just been a attorney general i've been standing up to a governor that had done uh... actually about ten years before so many of the things that trump is doing now i admit i felt the beginning like i i'd earn this right i had the battle scars i've gotten up every day put on the armor thinking we were probably the Spartans thankfully we ended up being the athean's uh... at the end um... but i got a tough primary uh... guy named rocky actins who had been the floor majority and the minority leader was in that race but what i remember about that race is we didn't attack each other we didn't kick each other we actually talked about the issues of the day while the third person in the race attacked both of us at the end of that race i asked rocky to be my senior advisor he worked with me for seven years one of the best parts of that team and if we to run that race differently i would have lost out on an important part of that administration and i'll tell you that civility is

1:42:53is critical um... and i think it can just start with basic courtesy i mean we see people right now who will walk into a room and refuse to shake people's hands you know i was taught that if you walk into a room and you see somebody you hate right your blood boils you've got to go over and shake their hand because if you don't it says something about you not something about them and i'm worried my mom's still watching so my personal view is that that which most ails our society is society will disconnect and that what we most need to restore is common experience and figure out how we can put the pieces of society our parents and our grandparents they were joiners right they were in the mousse lodge they were in the lions club they were in rotary and we don't have that connectivity we live in an age of connectivity and we've never been so disconnected and it's had a disastrous impact on our kids your reaction so i've got uh... a seventeen and a sixteen year old so pray for me

1:43:55social media has some possibles it also has some real negatives and just the stress that our kids are growing up in even outside of this i mean the stress of school shootings the stress of the news it's coming down every day the stress of democracy and and they're living through all of that if we are going to do better by our kids we're going to have to listen to them more because school wasn't like this when i went i didn't have the pressures of social media i remember when somebody said something nasty about you i thought the whole world knew well now they put it on a video on instagram or tiktok and the whole world can know people can be mean on a whole another level and so as we craft the right policies we got to stop calling people young leaders because i think that's just purge ordif and just invite them to the table as leaders because that's the only way we're going to see and hear the experience that we need and you're right our parents

1:44:55and grandparents weren't on snapchat but i do think back if we go all the way back to covid i missed my grandparents in their generation my mom's dad served in world war two and i couldn't imagine if the greatest generation had been there at the time and people had said no i don't want to do any of this they'd say we went to germany right we went to europe we fought for the future we just need you to stay home for a couple weeks and and so we missed that that generation okay but i want to hear you say the word mingle we need to mingle as a society can you say the word so i can play it on radio tomorrow here's what we need to do we need to mingle okay i i i have a final question for governor andi bashir and and again thank you for being here in in filial fia we know you're not going to tell us you may not even know the answer but what's the calculus how will you go about the decision that now faces you so let me first say to fill it out

1:45:58if you thank you all thank you i've never written a book before i tried twice and i've never been on a book tour and and for this to be the first venue that sold out for you to be one of the first moderators that agreed to do this it's pretty special so i never thought i'd be in this position i never thought i'd have this type of decision in front of me i thought the most important thing i'd do in politics is help a dad achieve a dream he thought was dead when i walked off the stage in 2023 after a grueling re-election campaign i looked at britney my wife and i said who we'll never have to run for anything ever again and i will tell you as i sit here i'm no longer sure that's true what's driving me right now to be part of that future and whatever way it looks is i just will

1:47:01not leave a broken country to my kids or anyone else's now my faith teaches me you're supposed to leave it better than you found it and we were headed that direction until the last two years under this president i can't allow his presidency to be normalized in the eyes of young americans it hurts me to see how young americans feel and i'm not criticizing them but feel about our country right now how our allies feel about the country right now i have to be if i have an opportunity to be a part of that solution somehow it goes back to the decision that we made for ever ran for anything at all and and it comes down to my other why which which which are my kids it's a cliche but the birth of my kids were two miracles of my life i've never lacked for purpose since they've been born i love them to death there are days that that i wonder um but i'm told they're very good to everybody else in life um

1:48:01but i just i i go back to that moment where i'm in a law practice i've made partner i've worked all this time to build my own book of business and we decide to walk away from it to cut my salary in half because what example did we want to leave them about what we were willing to do to try to create that that better world um so let me just say that um we'll sit down and we'll make a decision sometime after December um but it's not as important to me as what the title is than getting this country back on track making sure we don't lose hope so thank you for coming tonight i hope you enjoy the book thank you all very much from kickoff to the final whistle trade the biggest moments in football on kowshi america's number one prediction market platform denver is currently trading at 40% to upset

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