Kentucky on Track? with Gov. Andy Beshear

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Speaker 1 Hello, everybody.

Speaker 1 My name is Jon Stewart. This is the weekly show podcast, taping it Wednesday, April 30th, year of our Lord 2025.

Speaker 1 It is, I'm still hungover from the 100-day celebrations that have been sweeping the country. Oh,

Speaker 1 oh, to celebrate the first hundred days of this gloriously competent and patriotic B-12 shot in the ass to America that is, oh, wait, that's not what's happening at all. We're a shit show.

Speaker 1 The economy actually contracted, which President Trump immediately blamed on the Biden overhang. Apparently,

Speaker 1 Biden forcing Trump to levy ridiculous and whimsical tariffs is

Speaker 1 it was Biden's fault. Damn him.
Damn him for doing that. As part of the celebration, I don't know if you saw how the president was celebrating the 100 days.
He declared he'd be a good pope.

Speaker 1 What else did he say? Taunted Canada on the eve of their election, causing them to elect the liberal government over what was going to be a slam dunk.

Speaker 1 But I think my favorite moment of the 100-day jubilee, that is the Trump presidency

Speaker 1 of the celebration was his interview with Terry Moran of ABC, which is so instructive about

Speaker 1 the dynamic that Trump would prefer.

Speaker 1 It was one of those. Terry Moran comes in and starts asking him questions, and Trump immediately is just like, well, what are you doing? You're coming in here every time.

Speaker 1 Fucking question this, question that. Whatever happened to thank you,

Speaker 1 your grace, whatever happened to your honor you have made our lives so uh brilliantly wonderful how do you do it you know he's so accustomed to

Speaker 1 the just incessant ball polishing even his his cabinet meetings are not even cabinet meetings they are just opportunities uh for flattery and when he is presented with anything other than the simplest flattery, the simplest question is then seen as interrogation and the Spanish Inquisition because it is so against the tongue bath that he is accustomed to and not only accustomed to, demands and deserves.

Speaker 1 How dare you, a reporter, come into my office and not immediately fallate. Wow, how could could you? And there was an exchange.

Speaker 1 You know, there was the photoshopped picture of Trump holding, I guess, the, it was a picture of the gentleman that they Garcia Brego, that they had photoshopped that said, it literally said MS-13 on it.

Speaker 1 And Terry Moran brings it up and Trump says, well, it's, it said MS-13. And Terry Moran says, well, that was, you know, obviously Photoshop.
No, it wasn't. And then he tries to move on.

Speaker 1 Terry Moran keeps going like, anyway, about Ukraine. No, Nana, let's go.

Speaker 1 Let's go back. Why can't you just say I'm right? That, that to me is the most, it is the epitome of the attitude of this president.

Speaker 1 Why can't you just walk in here and say I'm fucking right, even when I am

Speaker 1 so objectively wrong that there is photographic evidence of my wrongness? Why can't you just ignore that and blow me?

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 1 And he has no idea, zero

Speaker 1 about the true effects on the ground for regular people of the absurdity of his actions and the lack of preparation for his trade war and the uncertainty.

Speaker 1 And he's got Scott Besson out there saying, well, it's a strategic uncertainty. It keeps our opponents off balance.
And you're like, actually, it's keeping your allies off balance.

Speaker 1 And today, actually, I'm excited for this episode. We're going to get a view from the ground from a governor who is trying very hard

Speaker 1 to stimulate economic activity in his state, to make sure that his people, as these Medicaid cuts come down, are still being taken care of.

Speaker 1 And I think it'll be a really interesting look at what the true effects are. of the madness of King Donald on these state levels.
So let's just, we're going to get to our guests now. Very excited.

Speaker 1 All right. We're delighted today.
We are joined by the governor of the great state of Kentucky, Governor Andy Bashir has joined. Governor, how are you, sir?

Speaker 4 I'm great. Thrilled to be on.
It's Derby Week in the Commonwealth, so an exciting time.

Speaker 1 That is an exciting time in the Commonwealth. I love the idea of the Commonwealth.

Speaker 1 You know, I'm from New Jersey. Do you have any idea what we would give to label ourselves a Commonwealth? We never get that kind of respect.

Speaker 4 You know, I'd like to think there's some good ones, you know, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, but I like to think Kentucky is the premier commonwealth.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 You're the governor of Kentucky. I think you pretty much have to say that.

Speaker 1 Only governors would know how many commonwealths there are. And I don't know what Jersey is classified as.

Speaker 1 provincial. Well, I was going to curse, but you're a governor, so I'm going to lay off of that.

Speaker 1 Governor, I want to ask you: you know, I don't, to be perfectly frank, know that much about Kentucky. I played a couple of gigs in Lexington a few years back, had a great time.

Speaker 1 It was beautiful down there.

Speaker 1 But I am confused. So,

Speaker 1 Trump Vance, they win Kentucky by 30 points, 35 points, something along those lines.

Speaker 4 30 points.

Speaker 1 You win Kentucky, Democrat, by five points.

Speaker 1 This is a 35-point swing.

Speaker 1 Both your senators are Republicans, but very different kinds of Republicans. Rand Paul, obviously, more a kind of classic, libertarian-style politician.

Speaker 1 Mitch McConnell couldn't be a more insider horse trading kind of a.

Speaker 1 Do you have a sense of what is it about Kentucky that allows for this giant ideological swings

Speaker 1 in statewide offices.

Speaker 4 Well, I think what the people of Kentucky want is what the people of America want. They want a better life.

Speaker 4 And if you can convince them that you are working your hardest to create that better life, then they'll give you that opportunity. You know, I won in 2019 by 0.1%.

Speaker 4 It was a close election against a sitting incumbent. But I got to spend the next four years earning the faith and the trust of the people of Kentucky.

Speaker 4 We had two of the best years of economic development in our history. We brought in more private sector investment.
We're building the two biggest battery plants on planet Earth.

Speaker 4 We created jobs that have some of the highest wages in our history.

Speaker 4 And so while we complicate politics and government a lot, It's supposed to be about creating a better life for all Kentuckians, for all Americans.

Speaker 4 And I think when people see that, you can break through regardless of your party.

Speaker 1 So let's dig into that because that's very interesting to me. So you build these plants.
Why in your mind do you think you were credited with that?

Speaker 1 And I don't mean that in the way of like, why'd you get the credit for that? I mean it in the way of Biden administration, Kamala Harris.

Speaker 1 What was it about their investment in Kentucky or lack thereof or maybe the CHIPS Act or any of those other things that did not break through in any way with Kentuckians?

Speaker 1 Would Kentuckians be the correct Kentuckians? Kentuckians. Okay.
I don't want to say like Kentucky Landers or whatever. I don't want to make the wrong.

Speaker 1 But why is it that they responded to those positive things economically that you had done, definitely had gotten accomplished?

Speaker 1 But the Democratic administration in Washington got absolutely no grace on that.

Speaker 4 And what you have to do is get dirt on your boots, meaning you got to get out there and show your work.

Speaker 1 Well, they didn't even have boots, Governor.

Speaker 1 I'm pretty sure they were wearing hush puppies.

Speaker 1 They're not even wearing boots.

Speaker 4 We could have found them some boots. All right.

Speaker 4 But you've got to show your work so that people can see, feel, and touch it. Like the signing in the Rose Garden is no longer real to people.

Speaker 4 You know, one job hasn't been created at the time of the signing. And so what we found is when I was running for re-election in 2023, again, we'd had our two best years ever for our economy.

Speaker 4 We were booming, biggest rainy day fund, biggest revenues, upgraded by all the bond rating agencies. But I only started up on my opponent on the economy by about three to five points.

Speaker 4 And he'd only worked in the private sector one year and actually worked for my law firm during that year.

Speaker 1 Wait, your opponent worked at your law firm?

Speaker 4 Yes, and actually did assignments.

Speaker 1 I bet he don't work there no more.

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 4 And it actually did assignments for me. It's a very small world.

Speaker 4 But what we found was that people needed to be reminded. Like we did a focus group and we said, well, what about the battery plants? What about the new paper mill?

Speaker 4 What about this record number of jobs? And so we got out there to prove it. We made sure the message we were sending when we started that campaign was one of more opportunity.

Speaker 4 You know, you can't take for granted that you pass three or four really good measures for the economy. You've got to show people how it happened.

Speaker 4 And then I think a challenge for the Biden administration was if you over-regulate the programs you put into place.

Speaker 4 They take so long to create the jobs or get the internet out there that people don't feel it by the next election.

Speaker 1 Did you have rural broadband programs that were supposed to come to Kentucky that ended up not coming to Kentucky?

Speaker 4 Well, the ARPA funds when they came out were really flexible. And we put those into hard infrastructure, including expansion of broadband.

Speaker 4 And it was incredible to see how fast we could do it and how effective it was. So part of the BEED program, when it was passed, was based on Kentucky.

Speaker 4 But what we had to do was write about three Encyclopædia Britannicas to the regulators

Speaker 4 who had never instituted one of these programs, which we had.

Speaker 4 So instead of sending the money and then auditing what we did, watching what we did, overseeing what we did, we had to plan and double plan and triple plan.

Speaker 4 And because of that, there's not one inch of fiber from the Bed program that's out there yet. So we as Democrats,

Speaker 4 we've got to be honest with the American people about our failings.

Speaker 4 I think that the Bede legislation was amazing amazing and transformational, but we've got to be practical and say our first job is to get things done.

Speaker 4 And we've got to set up a way of administering a program that does that.

Speaker 1 So let's talk a little bit about the things that are the bottlenecks to getting things done.

Speaker 1 And because certainly the federal bureaucracy is a very different animal than a state-level bureaucracy, and I'm not sure how that bureaucracy works in the state of Kentucky.

Speaker 1 In New Jersey, I can tell you, it is just a series of small

Speaker 1 mob social clubs.

Speaker 1 New Jersey is, it's all, we are

Speaker 1 number one in corruption now, I think, 212 years running. But in Kentucky, were you able to do these battery plants and these other things through legislation? Was it more executive? fiat?

Speaker 1 Are these block grants that you're redirecting into certain areas? What were the ways that you were able to execute

Speaker 1 these varieties of economic stimulus. Everybody's going to stimulate the economy somehow.
How did you end up doing it?

Speaker 4 Well, sometimes you need some legislation, but most of the time, it's your effectiveness.

Speaker 4 When people are looking at locating a huge investment, you got to have the site, you got to have the power, you got to have the water, you got to have the infrastructure, but then you've got to be able to convince them and give them comfort.

Speaker 1 When you say them, you mean the company.

Speaker 4 The company. Okay.

Speaker 4 That you can get it done. On our major projects, every single cabinet that has a part reports to me every two weeks because my job is to get those built as fast as we can.

Speaker 4 And we sell speed to market to all these companies that if you come to Kentucky, we'll get you up and running faster than anywhere. So we brought everybody in as a team.

Speaker 4 The environmental permitters sit down with companies ahead of time because these companies want to do right by the environment. And we work together.

Speaker 4 to see how fast we can do it and where the best placement of this or that would be to meet the goals and to protect the environment. Our building inspectors are ready ahead of time and are there.

Speaker 4 It's just about making things work and understanding that when we make it easier for people to build that facility, then the jobs come to our people that much faster.

Speaker 1 Okay, we're going to take a quick break. We shall be back.

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Speaker 1 And we are now back.

Speaker 1 Can I ask you in terms of, you know, when you're talking about, you're talking to different corporations.

Speaker 1 So let's, you know, I don't know if it's the battery or it's car makers or things along those lines. Do you need to,

Speaker 1 there's sort of this idea, globalization was a disaster for deindustrializing the United States.

Speaker 1 Companies looked at, oh man, I'd only have to pay these dudes $200 a month versus a union job where I've got to provide all these things or, you know, so they all offshore, they all move things out.

Speaker 1 But even within the United States, that same dynamic also takes place. You know,

Speaker 1 a union state like Michigan or someplace else may not be competitive with Kentucky. Do you find that that dynamic comes into play in your negotiations?

Speaker 1 Like, will you say to them, we don't have the level of regulation and unionization that they have in, let's say, Michigan?

Speaker 1 So if you come here, you won't have to deal with that.

Speaker 4 We don't end up having that specific conversation because even with all the laws the legislature's passed, union membership has gone up in Kentucky each of the last three years.

Speaker 4 They're booming, especially in the construction, in the building trades, and they're building all these facilities, getting them done on time and on budget.

Speaker 4 What we end up talking about the most is both getting their facility constructed on time, but then also workforce. While other states looked down on manufacturing for a long time, we never did.

Speaker 4 We believe in work. We believe that we need to make in the United States what the United States needs.
And so we were reshoring manufacturing before the second Trump administration.

Speaker 4 And the ironic thing is it has slowed down the pace of reshoring.

Speaker 4 That these tariffs that are supposed to encourage companies to build in the United States, those companies were already planning on building in the United States. They'd done too much with China.

Speaker 4 They were trying to hedge in the United States. Our growth was bigger than just about any other country.
But it takes three to five years, and the tariffs will hit them right now.

Speaker 4 And even when they build their facility, they will need to import certain materials or parts for a long time.

Speaker 4 And so these tariffs are actually stopping the aim that the Trump administration claims that it has. And everybody's seeing it.

Speaker 4 Everybody is seeing pause projects, cancel projects, and now we're even seeing layoffs. This is the single most damaging economic policy I've seen from a president in my lifetime.

Speaker 4 And the fascinating thing to me is more than anything I've ever seen in politics, it's attributable to one person and one person alone.

Speaker 1 Joe Biden. You're right, sir.
Joe Biden, sleepy Joe.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 you're dead on.

Speaker 1 Although he is saying, he came out today, you know, the GDP results came out today and they said it's a little funky because so many people tried to jump the orders because they were afraid of the tariffs, but that we shrunk GDP for the first time in three years.

Speaker 1 So Trump came out with a huge announcement, I believe it might have been all caps,

Speaker 1 saying, this is not my fault. This is the overhang from Joe Biden's, I guess, growth economy.
But how does that, so let's talk about that. You say two big battery plants, right?

Speaker 1 So I'm assuming, not knowing a whole lot about battery production, to be quite honest,

Speaker 1 but that has a rare earth metal component, I would guess.

Speaker 4 It does.

Speaker 4 And making batteries in the United States right now takes foreign direct investment. So this is a joint venture between Ford that has a huge Kentucky presence and SK, which is a South Korean company.

Speaker 4 And so when you look at these tariffs, it not only makes the operations and the cost of operations that much more difficult because we do have to import right now materials.

Speaker 4 And we're going to have to until we build out this industry, which is going to take time, but was happening. before this tariff policy.

Speaker 4 But you also are insulting and or attacking the countries where these companies are in. I mean, I never thought a president could push Japan and South Korea towards China.

Speaker 4 That's bad for foreign direct investment. That's bad for global security.
I'll give you another example. The biggest Toyota plant in the world is in Kentucky.
It's in Georgetown.

Speaker 1 The biggest one in the world is in Kentucky?

Speaker 4 In the world.

Speaker 4 We make the Camry. We also make some Lexuses.

Speaker 4 But when you push away countries that invest and their companies invest so much in us, it creates some significant concerns.

Speaker 4 I mean, you look at what's going on in Canada right now where they rightfully feel attacked by this administration. Sure.

Speaker 1 Well, it's about time. The free ride for Canada is long over.

Speaker 1 That's over, those bastards. I always liken that to

Speaker 1 attacking Canada. It's like when they have those prison stories where somebody goes into the prison yard and they walk up to the one guy.

Speaker 1 The whole theory is you walk up to the one guy that that apparently wasn't a problem at all and punch him. Like, that's what it seemed like with Canada.
And the same with Mexico.

Speaker 4 Or it's that guy that has walked with you everywhere you've gone, has tried to protect you, and then you turn on him.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Governor, we are discussing now

Speaker 1 how globalization,

Speaker 1 as much as it may have industrialized us, there is a reality. China's real.
They do manufacturing dumps.

Speaker 1 Targeted tariffs, I think most people would agree, have some utility, but the way that they are being sort of deployed on a whim and

Speaker 1 some people are getting exempted. They're now talking about in the automobile industry, they'll exempt steel and aluminum, maybe.

Speaker 1 How do the projects that are happening in Kentucky, how are they affected by that? Are they pulling back from them?

Speaker 1 Are those able to go forward still?

Speaker 4 Well, thankfully, we've got a really good pipeline of projects, projects, and I think our economy will continue to be hot. But we're seeing a slowdown all over the country.

Speaker 4 In fact, this Derby week, Churchill Downs just canceled a $900 million project, or at least paused it, that would have added hundreds, if not thousands, of construction jobs over the next year.

Speaker 4 And their president. talked about it being because of tariffs, the uncertainty of what things will cost.
And as you know, John, it's not just the current tariff policy. It's that it changes every day.

Speaker 1 Sure, it's the uncertainty of it.

Speaker 4 Right. Or two or three times a day.
And what it also suggests is they just don't know what they're doing.

Speaker 1 How dare you, sir? You are. Look, you're in a state that is a Trump ride or die state.
I don't think there's any question about that. Does that news permeate?

Speaker 1 Or do they still, is there a cognitive dissonance? Is there a willingness to just say, well, we have to take our medicine because Kentucky was suffering and these tariffs will reindustrialize us.

Speaker 1 How do they digest all this information?

Speaker 4 It permeates. It permeates with that small business owner that was expanding and is now looking at laying people off.

Speaker 4 Small business are the first to hire, the last to fire, because when they fire someone, they know them. They might go to church with them.

Speaker 4 They'll see them in the grocery store and know the impact on their lives. And so sadly, people are feeling pain, pain in paying their bills, pain in running their company.

Speaker 4 And so that certainly permeates. But I tell you what I hear about just as much, and it's the potential cuts to Medicaid.
Really? What it would do.

Speaker 4 First of all, for healthcare generally, I mean, Medicaid covers the people we love the most, our parents and our kids. 50% of Kentucky's kids have some Medicaid coverage.

Speaker 4 70% of our long-term care costs are covered by Medicaid. And rural healthcare is supported and cannot exist without Medicaid and at its current level, without expanded Medicaid.

Speaker 4 So imagine if you live in rural America and they do these cuts, your hospital system, which is your number two employer behind the public schools, shuts down. All those jobs are lost.

Speaker 4 It hits your economy.

Speaker 4 But then you, whether you have private insurance or Medicaid, have to drive an hour or two for your appointment, for your parents' appointments, for your kids' appointments to see the same doctor who lost their job in your town in a bigger city.

Speaker 1 How quickly are these changes affecting these areas right now? Is this anticipatory or are you seeing this play out with rapidity?

Speaker 4 Well, on the tariff side, we're seeing it right now. UPS just announced 20,000 layoffs, which is startling.
What? Yes. Our bourbon industry

Speaker 4 has been hit. We've seen a bottling plant shut down.

Speaker 1 Well, they're targeting, I mean, bourbon. You talk about Canada, boy.

Speaker 4 You know, the first thing they did was go, all right that's it we're not getting drunk anymore we're done well the last thing anyone should ever be deprived of is kentucky bourbon sure because 95 of the world's bourbon is made here the other five percent is counterfeit and and and the whole world should be able to enjoy because with all this craziness going around sure it can be helpful uh but but you know it that does show how hurt canada is how it's not just these tariffs it's the talk of the 51st state and john by the way they'd have the most electoral votes out of any state if that happened I don't understand how you make that giant area.

Speaker 1 Oh, it'd just be one state. You'll get two senators.
You'll be fine. You'll be the same as Wyoming.
Why not?

Speaker 4 But so hurt that they're pushing back. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What does this do, though, to

Speaker 1 the state budget? How much is this a sort of a bomb that's dropped in the middle of, I know that states always struggle to balance, you know, services that were provided from the federal.

Speaker 1 When those get pulled back, somebody's got to pick that up. What is this going to do to Kentucky's budget?

Speaker 4 It's going to be a challenge. We have about a $17 billion annual budget.

Speaker 4 I've got about 30,000 employees that do important work from repairing our roads to doing different claims for health care to ensuring our communities are safe.

Speaker 4 Government performs a lot of important functions. The federal government is doing a couple things right now that make it that much harder.

Speaker 4 First, they're trying to cancel programs and cancel programs that are enshrined in law that have had Congress appropriate to it and that we have a contract with them and we've probably already expended the funds.

Speaker 1 Which are the contracts that

Speaker 1 they're trying to cut? Is this a Doge situation or was this something else?

Speaker 4 It can be from Doge. It can also come down from the cabinets themselves.
We saw that with a lot of the FEMA funding that they were trying to pause or to cancel

Speaker 4 what they call the COVID funding, which is really about stopping a a future pandemic. Right.
Money for addiction treatment.

Speaker 1 They're taking the money for future planning of disasters away from you.

Speaker 4 And look at the cuts.

Speaker 4 The other part is not just freezing the money or bringing it back. And we're going to court and we're winning on that.
So I'm able to bring those dollars back in because I've got a contract.

Speaker 4 The government gave me their word. They even passed a law and I'm going to stand up for my people.

Speaker 4 But then the other thing they're doing is that they're firing so many federal employees that the employees that are there don't know how the programs work.

Speaker 4 Some of our cabinets are on their fifth contact in 100 days.

Speaker 4 And so it might be that the group is even trying in the federal government, but they're brand new or they've never done this part. And that comes down and hurts the American people.

Speaker 4 Think about that senior on Social Security in eastern Kentucky, and they closed the office where they're at. So now on a fixed income, they've got to drive a couple of hours.

Speaker 1 Have they closed those regional offices?

Speaker 4 So the regional offices have started to close they've they've announced the closure and hazard and a couple other areas and you can tell they just looked at a map and that they don't know how long it takes driving in appalachia right to get somewhere but but then they shut down the call center so what they are trying to make happen is that senior who in my state probably voted for for donald trump right drives two hours and then doesn't have the documents that he or she needs and and thus don't get the next check that they paid into the system and and that they are uh that that they should get What about the flood?

Speaker 1 You know, Kentucky obviously faced some really tough flooding recently. Have you seen a pullback from FEMA on

Speaker 1 helping to rebuild those areas, helping to make them more resilient to the flooding? Have you seen those effects as well?

Speaker 4 This is an area where if you are going to speak out against the Trump administration when they do wrong, you've got to give them credit when they're doing right.

Speaker 4 FEMA, in response to especially our February flooding, is doing some of the best I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot, 14 federally federally declared disasters since I became governor.

Speaker 1 Well, that's making news, man, because that's not, you know, everything we're hearing is they're trying to cut FEMA funding.

Speaker 4 Which is ironic because, again, it's operating well. I think the Biden administration made a lot of these changes, but the current administrator came in, made commitments to us that he kept.

Speaker 4 Secretary Noam pushed through our request for individual assistance because the president signed off on it. A number of people in Kentucky are getting help.

Speaker 4 So I think it's important, even when you're a Democratic governor,

Speaker 4 that we have the credibility to say, good job, what administration does well. But then we stand up and speak out and sometimes file suit when they're doing wrong.

Speaker 1 All right. We have to take a quick break and then we shall be back.

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Speaker 1 We are back.

Speaker 1 Now, you mentioned Appalachia before. It's such an interesting area because,

Speaker 1 and I wonder what your thoughts on this. It's been so resistant to the inroads of alleviating that entrenched poverty.
And what is it about that area? Because they, you know.

Speaker 1 Trump will say like, well, we got to bring back coal mining and all those sorts of things and that will revitalize it. But those areas have had an entrenched poverty issue for so long in this country.

Speaker 1 What do you think is about that? Because, you know, the thing about Kentucky is, you know, you can revitalize certain urban areas or you can bring back that battery manufacturing.

Speaker 1 But that one area, boy, that's a tough one to solve.

Speaker 1 What do you think it is about that that makes it so difficult?

Speaker 4 Well, we're making a lot of progress that I want to discuss, but let me start by saying Eastern Kentuckians and Appalachians helped build this country.

Speaker 4 They mine the coal that powered the Industrial Revolution. They powered us through two world wars.
Yet when the energy economy started to change, the new jobs didn't go where the old jobs were.

Speaker 4 The idea of environmental justice came along a lot earlier than economic justice.

Speaker 4 And so you have an area that rightfully feels that the country that they helped build has turned its back on them and not invested what's needed. And the the biggest challenge is infrastructure.

Speaker 4 You know, you're in the mountains because that's where the coal was. Well, to build an extra lane on a road many places may cost a couple million dollars.

Speaker 4 It costs a billion dollars if you're cutting into the side of a mountain. So take our mountain parkway project, which I believe is transformational.

Speaker 4 We're building the first four-lane highway into the heart of Appalachia in Kentucky history.

Speaker 4 Four lanes are important because a factory won't locate unless there are four lanes because they've got to be able to bring the trucks in and out.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 you're helping to bring the infrastructure. You can't get investment into that area unless they feel like they're going to be able to have the transportation necessary.

Speaker 1 They're going to be able to have the broadband necessary.

Speaker 1 You wouldn't be able to bring them in.

Speaker 4 And the water and sewer, but we've been using these federal dollars and other investments really targeted to move the needle in exciting ways.

Speaker 4 And now is the right time because for the first time I can remember, business is coming to people. Instead of expecting people to drive a couple hours to business, to relocate.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they're looking at the available workforce. So this is an exciting time where we can really change things.
At the same time, we're building what are called high ground communities.

Speaker 4 We're taking people who live in the floodplain who've been hit over and over and over. We're building entire neighborhoods on top of abandoned coal mines.

Speaker 4 It's the toughest, but I think the most innovative rebuild in the history of the United States. But we're going to have thousands of people that will never have to worry about flooding again.
Right.

Speaker 1 Are they willing to relocate? You know, it ain't easy to get people to relocate from areas that they want to be in.

Speaker 4 Well, everybody loves the dirt they're from, the property that their family has owned.

Speaker 4 But when your house has been swept away and when you've been holding on to your children to keep them from being swept away, we love our families a lot more than we'll ever love any piece of property.

Speaker 4 So we've got a huge amount of interest and we're addressing affordable housing in the area at the same time. But I will say, it was outside the box to try to for government to come in.

Speaker 1 Were you able to streamline regulation to get that? Is that something that you had to go after

Speaker 1 changing the environmental regulation, changing different things to get that done quickly?

Speaker 4 Well, what we were able to do is the state ran the project. And we, of course, are the regulators up until the point where we were ready to build the houses.

Speaker 4 And that's when we bring in nonprofit and other partners. So you can actually get past a lot of the zoning and the regulatory burden if you look at it in that way.

Speaker 4 And it's no different than what we do in economic development, where we say, we've got this great piece of land. Let's make sure we got all the utilities that need to go to it.
So it's doing the work.

Speaker 4 And again, it's remembering that the most important things that we do for our people aren't political at all.

Speaker 4 It's creating good jobs. It's making sure they can get to their next doctor's appointment.
It's safe roads and bridges, good education for our kids, and public safety.

Speaker 1 No, that's been, listen, that's been, I think, the difficulty that certainly the Democratic Party has had, which is

Speaker 1 getting the federal government.

Speaker 1 And that's why I think this is such an interesting discussion between what the federal government looks at and what state governments look at, because the needs are so different.

Speaker 1 For instance, in Kentucky, you mentioned, well, we moved away from those extraction jobs, fossil fuels, and the things that you're right,

Speaker 1 fueled the Industrial Revolution, fueled the standard of living that's happening in this country.

Speaker 1 And then there was the idea of, well, we're going to end all that, but we're going to teach you how to code. We're going to teach all the people that did all those extraction jobs.

Speaker 1 Those don't exist anymore. You don't get to live there anymore.
You're just going to learn how to, you know, build Facebook.

Speaker 1 Did people take to that or was that considered

Speaker 1 they didn't know what to do with it?

Speaker 4 So here's where real investment and treating people with dignity comes in. You know, coal mining was about an $85,000, $95,000 job.

Speaker 4 They were jobs that people were supporting two or three families with.

Speaker 1 How many coal miners,

Speaker 1 and I apologize for jumping in. What was the extent of that?

Speaker 1 How big an employment factor? Because it's not just the coal mine. It's everything around it that is supporting

Speaker 1 those things.

Speaker 4 I mean,

Speaker 4 it's in Kentucky at one point, you know, 100,000 plus jobs. If you look at the mining and then the hauling of the coal and

Speaker 4 the utilities.

Speaker 1 And all the small businesses that pop up around that support all of that.

Speaker 4 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Using the trucks, doing the

Speaker 4 because there's more small business if there's more economic activity that is in the area. So you take an $85,000 or a $95,000 job.
The energy economy dries them up.

Speaker 4 You don't see any real federal or outside investment. And then someone comes in and says, well, I'll teach you to code for $35,000 a year.

Speaker 4 That's hard.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 4 That's hard. And so as we look at changing economies that continue, to me, it's really important to make sure that Kentucky gets the next

Speaker 4 part of that economy. So when I was looking at the automotive industry, you know, we have Ford, we have GM, we have Toyota, we have Rivian now and so many others.

Speaker 4 I wanted to make sure that we didn't get hit twice. We didn't see the same thing happen.

Speaker 4 And so that's why I went out there and made sure we were getting those battery factories so that we never got left behind again.

Speaker 1 Right. Oh,

Speaker 1 what's going on? Are you having, what, what the heck is...

Speaker 4 I think you're hearing my dog.

Speaker 4 Winnie wanted to be a part.

Speaker 1 What's your dog's name?

Speaker 4 Winnie. Winnie is six years old in three days, I think.
She's my Labradude. This is a 65-pound dog that everybody loves.

Speaker 1 All right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Listen, they're very lovable.

Speaker 1 So we're discussing right now, the governor, sort of how the economics of creating growth and prosperity in your state differ from

Speaker 1 the federal level. Now, you have just been elected, I think, what the head of the Governor's Association for Democrats?

Speaker 4 I am the vice chair this year and the chair next year when we have 36 races.

Speaker 1 36 races.

Speaker 4 Yeah, just a little pressure.

Speaker 1 That are going to be going on for the governorships.

Speaker 4 Yes. So when you look at 2026, it's not just Congress, which everybody is rightfully focused on.
It's how many Democratic governors we'll have out there.

Speaker 4 If we pick up Virginia this year, we'll be at 24

Speaker 4 and then an opportunity to get either halfway or the majority in 2026. And what we see is that states that have Democratic governors, you know, they govern well.
Their people see jobs.

Speaker 4 We see the expansion of health care. And so for me to try to lift up even more leaders is good in 2026.
I also think it'll be really good for 2028.

Speaker 1 Right. I have a feeling, you know, and I'm sure you've thought about it.

Speaker 1 You've obviously had your name's been talked about as possible 2028, but it seems like with the Democratic brand in Washington at chlamydia levels of popularity,

Speaker 1 the Democratic governors have kind of made a name for themselves. And it's you and Shapiro and Pritzker and Whitmer and

Speaker 1 people that have had success stories in,

Speaker 1 you know, in

Speaker 1 building out the economies of states and getting things done in a way that I think is a different brand. It's almost as though you're two separate entities of Democrats.

Speaker 4 Well, our job is to get things done. And so what you find is we are practical.

Speaker 4 We also have to talk to our people every day, not once a week or once a month, which is what you see out of Congress that's up in D.C.

Speaker 4 And we don't talk in terms of what is 0.3, bullet four underneath a clause of a bill that nobody has seen. That's really important for Congress.

Speaker 4 But we talk in terms terms of what's going on in our state, what's next, and how we can build that better life. And such great leaders that are out there.

Speaker 4 Everybody you mentioned, you look at Josh Stein and Roy Cooper before him. You look at Jared Polis.
You look at Josh Green, Bob Ferguson, now coming in

Speaker 4 Washington, Katie Hobbs in Arizona, just

Speaker 4 Mara Healy in Massachusetts.

Speaker 1 But what's a lesson that you would say to the Democrats in Washington that you all have learned on the state level?

Speaker 1 What's a piece of advice that you would give to them?

Speaker 4 I think it's three things that we as Democratic leaders ought to be doing. Number one, focus.
Focus on those core areas.

Speaker 4 Spend 80% of your time, not just in what you're talking about, but what you're doing, focused on... jobs, health care, infrastructure, education, and public safety.

Speaker 4 Second, talk like a normal human being.

Speaker 4 I mean, we've got all these sanitized words.

Speaker 4 John, unfortunately, my state has gotten hit with the opioid crisis more than just about any other, though we have two straight years of decreasing overdose deaths. Thank God.

Speaker 1 Decreasing? Yes. Oh.

Speaker 4 Yes. And we hope it's a national trend.
And I think I'm going to have some really good news next week that I'm really grateful for.

Speaker 1 What do you attribute that to? Or was it a surprise?

Speaker 1 What have you done to do that?

Speaker 4 A lot of hard work, a lot of great people working in recovery, a lot of great work by law enforcement.

Speaker 4 Sadly, all of us having lost a lot of people we care about and trying to make sure that it doesn't happen. Changes in prescribing, which has been really important.

Speaker 4 But let me tell you, everyone I know that has fought addiction has called it addiction. They don't say it's substance use disorder.

Speaker 4 Everybody who's experiencing hunger, none of them call it food insecurity. But I'll give you another one.

Speaker 4 Justice involved population.

Speaker 1 Say that again.

Speaker 4 Justice involved population.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 I don't know that I've heard that one. What is that one?

Speaker 4 Those are our inmates.

Speaker 1 Oh, justice involved population. Do you get those? Does that come in a list from somewhere of here's the new glossary of terms?

Speaker 4 Well, you get pressure by people who mean well to use them, but when we talk in terms, in those sanitized terms, it has no emotion and no feeling. And that's not how people talk to each other.

Speaker 1 And so it makes you seem distance distracted maybe even professorial who is pushing uh that terminology because it's not you know i do hear it every now and again like pregnant people or things right but i don't actually hear it in reality i don't hear it utilized in even on television for for the most part.

Speaker 1 Is that an overexaggeration of its usage?

Speaker 4 I don't think it is, but I think the point that you're making is you never hear that amongst your friends. You never hear that amongst coworkers.

Speaker 4 And so if you hear that from someone in office or running for office, how different does it sound? How detached from the world we live in?

Speaker 4 And that leads me into the last thing I think people need to do, which is explain your why. Democrats talk about what they're for in minute detail,

Speaker 4 every single bit of what they're for, but never why they're for it.

Speaker 4 So to give you an example, during my election year, I vetoed the nastiest piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation my state had ever seen. It was picking on kids.

Speaker 1 What was the legislation?

Speaker 4 It was an anti-trans piece of legislation directly targeting children that are already picked on way too much.

Speaker 4 And when I explained my why, I told people that this is my faith that teaches me that all children are children of God.

Speaker 4 And that if the legislature was going to show hate towards these children, I wanted to show them love. I wanted them to see that a governor sees them and cares about them.

Speaker 4 And I'll never forget the next day. I had somebody walk up to me and I thought, oh no,

Speaker 4 stuck out his hand. I shook it.
And he said, I'm not sure I agree with what you did, but I know you're doing what you think is right.

Speaker 4 So when we talk about that why, sometimes we can get beyond that one hot issue. and get more towards are the people running our state or running for office trying to do what they think is right.

Speaker 1 Are cultural issues your toughest legislative heights? Because obviously Kentucky culturally, very conservative. They've been red for a very long time.

Speaker 1 Is that where you've had the most difficulty with the legislature? And what's the makeup of the legislature? You know,

Speaker 1 if it's reflective of 30% to

Speaker 1 Trump, is there a super majority of Republicans?

Speaker 1 What's the makeup that you're dealing with?

Speaker 4 There is a super, super majority

Speaker 4 on the other side.

Speaker 4 I'm not sure that there's anything.

Speaker 1 Did they crush your vetoes? When you vetoed it, did they go back and go, yeah, screw that?

Speaker 4 They do, but I wanted those kids to know that I care about them. When I vetoed anti-diversity legislation, I wanted everyone to feel welcome.

Speaker 4 And there's a power in that, John, about a governor saying,

Speaker 4 I believe in you.

Speaker 4 I see you for who you are.

Speaker 4 And I believe that there's an important place in Kentucky for you. And

Speaker 4 I get to hear that, but I mainly do it just because it's the right thing. And sometimes we get away from that.
Oftentimes, the right thing is the right political thing.

Speaker 4 But if people see you standing up for your principles,

Speaker 4 they can respect that even if they sometimes disagree.

Speaker 1 Quick break, then we're coming back.

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Speaker 1 We are back.

Speaker 1 You know, you talked earlier about, boy, the we have to really consider our language and speaking like in the way that that people speak.

Speaker 1 I would imagine there's no initiatives more popular in a very red state with a super majority of Republicans than anti-DEI or anti-trans or anti-immigrant kinds of legislation and that they can put those through pretty easily.

Speaker 1 Boy, that's a needle to thread to discuss those things without sounding like

Speaker 1 a woke intellectual that is trying to do their.

Speaker 1 How do you convince people in pragmatic terms that DEI isn't about merit? It's about investing, showing people of Appalachia, like you're a community that's been left behind.

Speaker 1 Investing in you is kind of like DEI. It's bringing in communities that have been historically left out of these kinds of things.

Speaker 4 Well, I think the first thing you do is explain your why,

Speaker 4 which I was able to do. Diversity is always a strength.
It makes us better.

Speaker 4 But then the next day, you're opening that next factory. You're opening the new road that's going to save people 20 minutes each way.

Speaker 4 Yes, those pieces of legislation may fly through, but they will never, even as politicized as they are, be as important to the American people as that good job or being able to afford their kids prescription.

Speaker 4 And it's just not losing sight of that, that you stand up for your principles, but you recognize that you've got to spend the majority of your time on things.

Speaker 4 The greatest part about that focus is it helps everybody.

Speaker 4 A good job helps a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent. It's truly that common ground.
And so when I talk about what I think our road forward is, I'm hoping it's not just Democrats.

Speaker 4 I'm hoping it's Republicans too. I don't want to leave a broken country to my kids.
I don't want to see this type of division.

Speaker 4 And I think that the most important things aren't partisan, and there should be a way in the future for us to come together.

Speaker 1 Now, when you look at that, the things that are happening with the tariffs, the Doge cuts, they've also cut an awful lot out of, for instance, mining inspections.

Speaker 1 Which one of those coming down in a practical way to your state is going to create the most difficulty for you? Is it straight up, I'll get less money from the federal government?

Speaker 1 Or is it the practical services that the feds were helping provide, whether it be for

Speaker 1 environmental or safety issues or any of those other things? Where are you looking to triage the most?

Speaker 4 Well, the Medicaid cuts would be devastating.

Speaker 1 That's the biggest one.

Speaker 4 Huge Medicaid cuts will wipe out rural health care across America. And that's not an exaggeration.
It will wipe out rural health.

Speaker 1 Will you have to try and make that up financially to provide them or does that just go away?

Speaker 4 We will try, but the numbers are enormous.

Speaker 4 The numbers that would be required there would tax the rainy day funds of states very, very quickly.

Speaker 4 You know, Medicaid is a part of our health care portfolio, and it's going to need to be a part in the future. Other things that keep me up at night are the

Speaker 4 doge cuts or the firings that impact our public safety. I think about firings of CIA analysts.
I lost a classmate in 9-11. What they do is really important.
Firings of FBI agents.

Speaker 4 I worked with them as Attorney General to catch child predators. Fewer FBI agents.
Fewer child predators are caught.

Speaker 4 Or the National Weather Service, which has given us a heads up on the last three major natural disasters. We've deployed people all over the state and made thousands of rescues.

Speaker 4 Well, if we don't have that heads up, we can't help as many of our people. More people die in those disasters.

Speaker 4 So there are real world impacts that can even be life versus death to what this administration is doing.

Speaker 1 Now, are you just, are you right now in kind of emergency mode, buckling down to try and, you know, prepare yourselves for is everybody kind of just

Speaker 1 curling up and preparing for the storm?

Speaker 4 What I'm doing is pushing back. I am in court.
My attorney general doesn't want to file these lawsuits, so I'm doing it as governor.

Speaker 1 Your attorney general does not want to file the lawsuits.

Speaker 4 No, no, but he's not challenging my ability to do it either. I don't want to be too tough because some other AGs might otherwise do it.

Speaker 1 So you're suggesting the Justice Department in Kentucky has some independence. from the executive.

Speaker 4 It absolutely does, and it absolutely should.

Speaker 1 Interesting. What an interesting principle.

Speaker 4 Yes. I mean, when I was AG,

Speaker 4 my governor was a Republican who attacked me just about every day, but it worked out okay.

Speaker 4 But I also didn't challenge his ability to file, knowing how important it could later be.

Speaker 4 So I pushed back in court, and then I'm doing everything I can to speak out. But it's more than just Democratic officials speaking out.

Speaker 4 John, I think how we change the trajectory of what we're seeing right now is getting individual Americans to speak out.

Speaker 4 Everybody's got the cell phone, everybody's got the camera, and everybody's on one of these social media platforms.

Speaker 4 It's videoing how much more your groceries cost.

Speaker 4 It's showing that facility that's shutting down.

Speaker 1 Testimony.

Speaker 1 You're asking for testimony. Exactly.

Speaker 1 I think that's wise. Witness and testimony.

Speaker 4 Well, I got to have this amazing experience. I got invited to Selma for the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
And I got to talk to some of those brave foot soldiers that are still here.

Speaker 4 And it just hit me that there wasn't one person speaking out. It was a collective courage that just changed the world in such an important moment.

Speaker 1 And everybody stepping forward

Speaker 1 and making their mark. To that end, perhaps even a podcast, they were telling me you just started a podcast.

Speaker 4 I did. I started the Andy Bashir podcast.
I'm trying to take tips from you. We are on YouTube.

Speaker 1 Let me please disabuse you of the notion that that is a

Speaker 1 get out of this business now. Familiarity breeds contempt.
You don't want any part of this.

Speaker 4 Well, it's just a chance to talk to people directly, but more than that, it actually came from people asking me to do something like what we did during COVID. I mean, there's uncertainty out there.

Speaker 4 It's a scary world. The news hits you over and over.
The level of stress on the American people. is as big as it's been since that pandemic.

Speaker 4 So to try to talk through things like you do with humor or that I try to do with a conversation among friends, friends, just trying to help people process, speak out, but then refresh themselves for the week ahead because we're going to get hit by more.

Speaker 1 Now, do you have your constituents sometimes come on and do like a little Zoom with the governor and do different things like that?

Speaker 4 We've done an Ask Andy segment. We have guests on...

Speaker 1 Where are you going?

Speaker 1 You're going casual. Ask Andy, not ask the governor.

Speaker 4 That's right. Then

Speaker 4 we've had Senator Amy Klobuchar on. Senator Coons is coming on.
But then we like to introduce people to folks folks that they haven't met.

Speaker 4 And in the first two episodes, my kids even teach me Gen Z lingo. Oh, for God's sake.
It turns hysterical.

Speaker 1 Touch her, get out of this business now. You don't want anybody.

Speaker 4 In the first one, we learn the difference between skippity and fire.

Speaker 1 Now, I'm, I'd see, all right. Now, I'm already lost.
I don't, I'm not sure I know any of that.

Speaker 4 If someone says your podcast is skippity, you're doing great. If they say it's fire, you're doing amazing.

Speaker 1 Your kids, how old are your kids?

Speaker 4 15 and 14.

Speaker 1 And they're still talking to you?

Speaker 4 Sometimes, if I invite them on a podcast. All right.

Speaker 1 It's only got to be a skibbity podcast and then they'll come on and do it for you. That's all right.

Speaker 1 I'm glad about that.

Speaker 1 And I really appreciate you taking the time. You know,

Speaker 1 I very much enjoy talking to governors because, again, it's so much about the day-to-day practicality of trying to get these things done. And I think it's so important.

Speaker 1 We are so focused on the national conversation, right? And it's the 24-hour news networks, and it's all about the cultural issues.

Speaker 1 Very rarely do you get a chance to hear about the realities on the ground in a state where you really are

Speaker 1 locked into your people's needs and what's necessary to care for those. And the more that that story can be told, I really do think the American people writ large will understand

Speaker 1 better

Speaker 1 what the stakes are for these different changes in policy, what the stakes are in these different changes in the whims of our current mad

Speaker 1 King Donald. And so I appreciate you helping to educate on that.

Speaker 4 Well, I think it shows that there's a path forward, and forward, I think, is the important word.

Speaker 4 You know, in D.C., they worry about left and right. We worry about...
forward for all of our people.

Speaker 4 And I'd like to think that that gives us a path to heal and to ultimately bring people back together after the most divisive time I've ever seen in my lifetime.

Speaker 1 No question about that. Governor Andy Bashir, the great state of Kentucky, thank you so much for taking the time and spending it with us.
And good luck on your podcast.

Speaker 4 Thank you, John.

Speaker 1 Thanks.

Speaker 1 Wow. So important.
I'm so pleased that we got a chance to talk to him.

Speaker 1 I hope it wasn't too in the weeds, but it's so important to see like what the aspects go into about revitalizing economic activity at the state level and all the unforeseen consequences of the tom fuckery and dick foolery that is occurring through this administration and the effects that the guy literally gets two battery factories to come in and help reindustrialize a state that's been deindustrialized, but because of these tariffs, you know, or the plants that get put on hold or the $900 million

Speaker 1 project to revitalize Churchill Downs.

Speaker 1 It just gets, we can't do it now because of the uncertainty that has been injected into this economy by one man because his brilliance cannot be denied or in any way objected to, and certainly by a compliant Congress.

Speaker 1 And this is what is happening to a state that voted for him by 30 points. But

Speaker 1 very, very interesting on-the-ground perspective from Governor Bashir. I thought really helpful to get a better understanding of what all this is doing to even the reddest of states.

Speaker 1 That's all.

Speaker 1 We're out of time.

Speaker 1 But once again, thanks to lead producer Lauren Walker, producer Brittany Mimedovic, video editor and engineer Rob Vitolo, audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce, our researcher and associate producer Jillian Spear.

Speaker 1 And of course, our executive producers, Chris McShane and Katie Gray.

Speaker 1 Thank you guys so much for listening, and we will see you again next week. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 The weekly show with Jon Stewart is a comedy central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Bus Boy Productions.

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