Latest / Pod Save America / 2020: John Hickenlooper on brewing beer and winning purple states

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2020: John Hickenlooper on brewing beer and winning purple states · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. The next
0:23
Speaker 1: candidate in our series of presidential candidate interviews is Jon Hickenlooper.
0:30
Speaker 1: He came to Cricket Headquarters this week. He and I
0:34
Speaker 1: sat down. He's the former two-term governor of Colorado. Before that,
0:38
Speaker 1: he was the mayor of Denver. And we had a
0:42
Speaker 1: great conversation about how he thinks we can get stuff
0:46
Speaker 1: done in Washington. We talked about immigration. We talked about
0:51
Speaker 1: the Green New Deal. We talked about some of the
0:53
Speaker 1: gun safety measures he enacted while he was governor of Colorado.
0:57
Speaker 1: It's a great interview. So check it out. This is
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Speaker 1: Governor John Hickenlooper.
1:09
Speaker 2: All right.
1:09
Speaker 1: I'm here with former Governor John Hickenlooper, a candidate for
1:13
Speaker 1: the Democratic nomination for president. Governor, welcome to Pod Save America.
1:17
Speaker 2: Glad to be on. Thanks so much for having me back.
1:19
Speaker 1: I want to start with a question that we, some
1:22
Speaker 1: version of which we ask all the different candidates. So
1:25
Speaker 1: you are a moderate Democrat. former governor, mayor, small business
1:30
Speaker 1: owner from a Western state. You look out at this
1:34
Speaker 1: gigantic field of Democratic candidates and there are actually other moderates,
1:39
Speaker 1: other former governors, former mayors, former small business owners, people
1:44
Speaker 1: from Western states. What was it when you were looking
1:48
Speaker 1: at the field and thinking about running that made you
1:51
Speaker 1: think something is missing in this field? I should run
1:54
Speaker 1: for president. This is my time to run.
1:57
Speaker 2: Well, if you look at it, there's only one other mayor.
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Speaker 1: That's true.
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Speaker 2: And he certainly wasn't a governor. Right. And there's only one.
2:04
Speaker 1: I guess Booker was a former mayor.
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Speaker 2: Former mayor. So that's true. But he wasn't a governor. Right.
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Speaker 1: That's true.
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Speaker 2: So two mayors, but they weren't governors. And in a
2:13
Speaker 2: funny way, I feel like I'm the one person that
2:15
Speaker 2: actually has spent my life both in small business, but
2:20
Speaker 2: my life as eight years as a mayor, eight years
2:22
Speaker 2: as a governor, My job was to bring people together
2:25
Speaker 2: who often were at odds in conflict and figure out
2:29
Speaker 2: how to get them to put down their weapons and
2:32
Speaker 2: then get stuff done. And I looked at the whole
2:34
Speaker 2: field and in a funny way, I looked at it
2:37
Speaker 2: almost everyone else. And you can, as you interview each one,
2:40
Speaker 2: you can ask whether, I mean, I feel like I
2:44
Speaker 2: never ran for student council. I wasn't involved in student politics.
2:48
Speaker 2: I didn't want that power.
2:49
Speaker 1: You didn't run until you were almost 50 years old.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was 49 years old when I ran for
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Speaker 2: Denver mayor. It was the first time I ever ran
2:55
Speaker 2: for anything. And I feel that, you know how in
2:58
Speaker 2: kids in elementary school, you know, chat books or school
3:03
Speaker 2: books that they have, they have like three different images.
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Speaker 2: Which one doesn't look like the others? Yeah. I feel
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Speaker 2: like that within all the presidential candidates, I'm the one
3:13
Speaker 2: guy that, in small business. You know, I started our
3:16
Speaker 2: restaurant and then worked with all the other restaurant owners
3:18
Speaker 2: to change and transform a whole neighborhood of Denver, what
3:22
Speaker 2: they call now Lodo, back then it was lower downtown.
3:24
Speaker 2: We got everyone to buy pint glasses together. And you
3:26
Speaker 2: opened a brew pub, right? Yeah. It was a restaurant
3:27
Speaker 2: that brews its own beer. We were, I think, the
3:29
Speaker 2: 10th brew pub in North America. Okay. And so we
3:33
Speaker 2: opened it, but we used it as a community organizing
3:35
Speaker 2: tool to build community. And then we did them in
3:38
Speaker 2: a bunch of other cities like Omaha and Des Moines,
3:40
Speaker 2: Rapid City, South Dakota. Always... historic buildings in abandoned parts
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Speaker 2: of downtown, always trying to create community. And then I went,
3:47
Speaker 2: and when I ran for mayor, I got all the
3:49
Speaker 2: suburban mayors to work together. And we did, you know,
3:52
Speaker 2: fast tracks, the largest transit initiative in the history of
3:54
Speaker 2: the country. And then when I was governor, you know,
3:57
Speaker 2: I went out to the, I got the environmental community
3:59
Speaker 2: to sit down with the oil and gas industry. And
4:01
Speaker 2: we created, you know, these regulations, methane regulations to stop
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Speaker 2: the flaring and venting of methane, which is, you know,
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Speaker 2: methane's 25, 40 times worse than than CO2 in terms
4:13
Speaker 2: of climate change. I mean, each of these are just
4:15
Speaker 2: example after example of where I kind of felt like
4:19
Speaker 2: I was there to take people from where they were
4:23
Speaker 2: and move them to a different place where they could
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Speaker 2: hear each other better and they could actually work together,
4:28
Speaker 2: which again, I realize the cynicism that's out there today.
4:31
Speaker 2: I listen to Podcast America. I'm not a stranger to
4:35
Speaker 2: the challenges that we face in all this, but at
4:38
Speaker 2: a certain point, We have to be able, if we're
4:41
Speaker 2: really going to address not just universal coverage, but making
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Speaker 2: sure that we can control the inflationary spiral of healthcare
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Speaker 2: costs or deal with climate change, right? I mean, within, what,
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Speaker 2: 10 years or 12 years of irreversible damage, somebody somehow
4:57
Speaker 2: has got to bring people together. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, so you've clearly had a lot of
5:01
Speaker 1: success working with Republicans in Colorado and with people who
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Speaker 1: disagree with you in Colorado. In D.C., Of course, I
5:08
Speaker 1: was in the Obama White House for eight years and
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Speaker 1: watched Republicans block every single policy that President Obama proposed,
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Speaker 1: even moderate policies, even free market policies, tax cuts, you
5:20
Speaker 1: name it. What leads you to believe that you will
5:25
Speaker 1: have more success than Obama did working with D.C. Republicans?
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Speaker 2: Well, it's hard, if I'm going to be bluntly honest,
5:34
Speaker 2: it's hard to think I have so much admiration for
5:37
Speaker 2: President Obama, it's hard to say, well, I can do this,
5:40
Speaker 2: what he didn't. And I, you know, I look at
5:43
Speaker 2: someone like Mitch McConnell when he came in and said
5:47
Speaker 2: that he would do everything humanly possible within his power
5:51
Speaker 2: to make sure that as president, Barack Obama had no successes. Yeah.
5:56
Speaker 2: I mean, that verges on, that's treasonous. Right. I mean,
5:58
Speaker 2: that's someone who's an elected official saying that they want
6:01
Speaker 2: to work against the common good of Americans. Again, I'm
6:06
Speaker 2: not saying that I can do anything with Mitch McConnell.
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Speaker 1: I saw that you had said that you would have
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Speaker 1: a drink with him when you got to D.C. What
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Speaker 1: would you say during the drinks?
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Speaker 2: I would reach out to him because you have to
6:18
Speaker 2: reach out and you have to go to their turf
6:21
Speaker 2: and as much just to show all their followers that
6:23
Speaker 2: you're paying the respect to the system. But then you
6:26
Speaker 2: sit down and you try and figure out where is
6:28
Speaker 2: their self-interest and how can you find some way to
6:33
Speaker 2: work towards some level of of common ground. And again,
6:37
Speaker 2: you know, when we had the, the, after the Aurora
6:40
Speaker 2: movie theater shooting, we decided we were first, we put
6:42
Speaker 2: 30 million bucks into mental health stuff, but then we
6:45
Speaker 2: decided to take on universal background checks that process. I mean,
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Speaker 2: we could not get the NRA to compromise at all.
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Speaker 2: They would, I mean, they barely talked to us, but
6:57
Speaker 2: in the end we just had to muscle it through.
6:58
Speaker 2: And sometimes you just have to do that. Right. But,
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Speaker 2: Again and again, when I got elected mayor of Denver
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Speaker 2: in 2003, my predecessor, Wellington Webb, who was a great
7:08
Speaker 2: American mayor, I mean, really one of the great mayors
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Speaker 2: of the 20th century, he could not be in the
7:13
Speaker 2: same room with the mayor of Aurora. They hated each other.
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Speaker 2: One or the other would walk out. They couldn't talk
7:19
Speaker 2: to each other. And Denver hated Aurora. Aurora hated Denver.
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Speaker 2: That was the sense. And when I first ran for mayor,
7:27
Speaker 2: I said, I believe Denver will never be a great
7:30
Speaker 2: city without great suburbs. And everyone said, you can't say that.
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Speaker 2: Denver hates the suburbs. But the bottom line was the
7:40
Speaker 2: politicians hated each other. The citizens didn't. And when I
7:43
Speaker 2: got elected, I went out to the mayor of Aurora
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Speaker 2: and I actually sat down and spent an hour in
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Speaker 2: his office. I didn't make him come to me. And
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Speaker 2: I just kept asking, so what do you really need?
7:52
Speaker 2: And how can we make this work? And if we
7:54
Speaker 2: did a light rail system, how could it really work
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Speaker 2: for Aurora? And what things would we have to change
7:59
Speaker 2: from that rough draft of a plan of a year ago? And,
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Speaker 2: you know, if you listen hard enough, this is a
8:05
Speaker 2: trick you learn in the bar business, right? Having all
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Speaker 2: those brew pubs and, you know, dealing with cranky, irate customers.
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Speaker 2: Sometimes they're completely wrong, but boy, you don't want them
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Speaker 2: to leave when they're really ticked off because they'll go
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Speaker 2: out and trash your reputation. You won't hear about it
8:20
Speaker 2: until it's way too late. And so you You learn
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Speaker 2: to repeat back exactly their words when they're really angry.
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Speaker 2: I know it sounds silly because politics is probably a
8:29
Speaker 2: different universe, but I did do this with a bunch
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Speaker 2: of the mayors, not the mayor of Aurora, but several
8:34
Speaker 2: of the other mayors I went and visited too because
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Speaker 2: they get so angry at me. And you just repeat
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Speaker 2: back the words to make sure they feel heard, that
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Speaker 2: they feel validated. And it's funny, at least with me,
8:43
Speaker 2: when you say back, when someone says something to you
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Speaker 2: that's really angry, there are certain you know, body rhythms
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Speaker 2: or your chemistry that changes and you kind of close
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Speaker 2: down and you don't, I think sometimes you don't really
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Speaker 2: hear people. And when you repeat back their same words,
8:59
Speaker 2: you suddenly kind of hear them in a different sense.
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Speaker 2: You actually really hear them maybe. In the restaurant business,
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Speaker 2: we'd say, oh, so the waiter dropped soup on your lap. Oh,
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Speaker 2: and the waiter wasn't looking where he was going. I hear, oh,
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Speaker 2: and yes, the soup was very hot. And it validates
9:15
Speaker 2: them hearing it. When you say it, it moves you
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Speaker 2: in a different place. And you get to that point
9:19
Speaker 2: where you just have an inkling of trust. And again,
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Speaker 2: I'm not saying that this would work with Mitch McConnell,
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Speaker 2: but something's got to work with somebody.
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Speaker 1: I guess what I've come to realize is that the
9:33
Speaker 1: problem with politics, in Washington at least, is less a
9:37
Speaker 1: clash of personalities and more a clash of incentives. Obama
9:43
Speaker 1: didn't have a great relationship with Mitch McConnell. He did
9:45
Speaker 1: have a pretty good relationship with John Boehner. And I
9:47
Speaker 1: remember Boehner saying, I want to do immigration reform. Let's
9:50
Speaker 1: figure this out together. And they had this plan. They
9:52
Speaker 1: were going to do it. And then, you know, Eric
9:54
Speaker 1: Cantor loses in Virginia and Boehner comes to Obama and
9:56
Speaker 1: he goes, I really want, I like you. I want
9:59
Speaker 1: to do this. But my caucus is a bunch of
10:01
Speaker 1: people in districts that are 90 plus percent white. They
10:05
Speaker 1: don't want to do immigration reform. And if I push it,
10:08
Speaker 1: I'm going to be ousted as speaker. So that's that.
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Speaker 1: And it's like, there's no amount of golf that Boehner
10:14
Speaker 1: and Obama could have played that would have changed that dynamic.
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Speaker 1: And so I wonder for the next Democratic president, like,
10:20
Speaker 1: how you think about passing a legislative agenda and how
10:25
Speaker 1: you think about power and power dynamics in this situation.
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Speaker 2: Well, you know, power, and you're right, the dynamics surrounding
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Speaker 2: power are a function of, you know, certain core elements
10:37
Speaker 2: of being human, right? So there's that sense of insecurity
10:42
Speaker 2: that pretty much everybody has somewhere. There's that sense of
10:45
Speaker 2: wanting to belong to a tribe and have some sense
10:48
Speaker 2: of safety by... by being part of that group, you've
10:52
Speaker 2: got to utilize those various kind of emotional values and
10:57
Speaker 2: attach them to positions where people feel they're getting some advantage.
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Speaker 2: And it is, I think, one of the most complicated
11:05
Speaker 2: things in life. But also, in business or in politics,
11:09
Speaker 2: it's always a question about trying to hear clearly what
11:12
Speaker 2: the person really wants. I can't tell you how many
11:14
Speaker 2: times that once you get a little bit of trust
11:19
Speaker 2: between people, then you can finally collaborate. Without that, you
11:22
Speaker 2: can't collaborate at all. I tell our staff for years,
11:27
Speaker 2: we collaborate at the speed of trust. And there's really nothing,
11:31
Speaker 2: I mean, trust only comes from hard work. You've got
11:33
Speaker 2: to take the effort and really listen and demonstrate that
11:36
Speaker 2: you hear people, that you have some respect for them,
11:38
Speaker 2: you care about them, and you're going to strike out.
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Speaker 2: Someone like Mitch McConnell is just not going to, but
11:43
Speaker 2: then you have to look for somebody else. And how
11:45
Speaker 2: can you find... I think immigration, especially right now, is
11:49
Speaker 2: such a perfect place because I saw the labor data
11:52
Speaker 2: came out a few weeks ago where we now have 7.2
11:56
Speaker 2: million jobs unfilled and 6.3 million people looking. So we
12:00
Speaker 2: don't even have as many people looking for work as
12:02
Speaker 2: we have job openings. And the main reason, more than
12:06
Speaker 2: half those jobs aren't filled because we don't have the skills, right? Well,
12:11
Speaker 2: we need more people right now. We left... we left
12:14
Speaker 2: vegetables and fruits, you know, agricultural produce that couldn't be
12:19
Speaker 2: harvested by machines. It went unharvested last year, California, Colorado,
12:25
Speaker 2: all across the country, because we didn't have the right labor.
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Speaker 2: If we can't address right now immigration and say, listen,
12:33
Speaker 2: let's go after all this stuff and let's, you know,
12:36
Speaker 2: deal with the issue of refugees at the border. Let's
12:38
Speaker 2: get an ID system that works. Let's make sure we
12:41
Speaker 2: have the right you know, visas and figure out what
12:44
Speaker 2: the right pathway to citizenship is and somehow make sure
12:49
Speaker 2: that we go to those states where people are worried
12:51
Speaker 2: that the immigrants are going to take their job and
12:54
Speaker 2: show them that actually our economy in a very real
12:59
Speaker 2: way is based upon having more immigrants. If we can't
13:02
Speaker 2: do it now, we're never going to do it.
13:04
Speaker 1: What would your top legislative priority as president be?
13:09
Speaker 2: You know, that's, I mean, you look at things like
13:10
Speaker 2: climate change that are such an imperative. I look at
13:14
Speaker 2: automation and artificial intelligence, what that's going to do in
13:17
Speaker 2: the workplace and turn it upside down. But I think
13:20
Speaker 2: in terms of what people feel the greatest urgency about,
13:24
Speaker 2: it's health care. That's the one thing in Iowa, New Hampshire,
13:26
Speaker 2: when I'm in South Carolina, people are so fearful of
13:32
Speaker 2: what's going to come next and so distrustful of Trump
13:35
Speaker 2: and the Republican Party that they're going to, it's not
13:38
Speaker 2: just preexisting conditions and it's not just coverage. They can't
13:42
Speaker 2: afford the coverage they've got. And so I think you
13:47
Speaker 2: have to do them all kind of together in a
13:49
Speaker 2: funny way. The artificial intelligence and automation is tied into healthcare,
13:53
Speaker 2: which all kind of play a significant role in how
13:57
Speaker 2: we address climate change. But I think healthcare is probably
14:00
Speaker 2: at the center of it all just because it is
14:02
Speaker 2: the emotional core of so many Americans right now.
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Speaker 1: What would you do on health care? You're for a
14:08
Speaker 1: public option?
14:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that I'm very cautious about, you know,
14:13
Speaker 2: if you're going to go Medicare for all and doing
14:14
Speaker 2: it all one swipe.
14:16
Speaker 1: Right.
14:17
Speaker 2: You're telling 150 million people, you know, and I realize
14:20
Speaker 2: that half of them or maybe even more than half
14:23
Speaker 2: of them don't like their private insurance. Even if it
14:27
Speaker 2: is through their workplace, they'd like to get rid of
14:29
Speaker 2: it and have something else. But the other half... you know,
14:33
Speaker 2: trust it and don't want to lose it. And at
14:35
Speaker 2: least in this country, we traditionally don't take something away
14:39
Speaker 2: from people. We're very careful. President Obama was very careful
14:42
Speaker 2: to try and make sure and reassure people in every
14:46
Speaker 2: way that he could as we did the Affordable Care Act.
14:48
Speaker 2: I think that same reassurance is necessary now. However, you
14:52
Speaker 2: need a public option, right? We got in Colorado, we
14:55
Speaker 2: did this bipartisan. We expanded Medicaid. We got to almost
14:58
Speaker 2: 100% coverage, almost 95% coverage, right? And if we had
15:03
Speaker 2: a public option, and they're going to get a public option,
15:05
Speaker 2: I think, this year. We did a lot of the
15:07
Speaker 2: foundation work. So maybe that's Medicare. Maybe it's Medicare Advantage
15:11
Speaker 2: or some combination of best practices for the two. Maybe
15:14
Speaker 2: part of it could even be expanding Medicaid, who qualifies
15:19
Speaker 2: for Medicaid on the other side of the spectrum. But
15:23
Speaker 2: either way, let's just say, for the sake of argument,
15:26
Speaker 2: we're going to have a public option of Medicare. And
15:29
Speaker 2: People go to it, and as more people go into Medicare,
15:32
Speaker 2: it becomes even more efficient, and the quality improves, and
15:35
Speaker 2: more people want Medicare. And then all of a sudden,
15:37
Speaker 2: everyone wants to leave their private insurance, and they flood
15:40
Speaker 2: into Medicare. Then we end up with a single payer.
15:43
Speaker 2: It might take us 10 years, but we end up
15:46
Speaker 2: with a single payer through evolution rather than revolution. And
15:50
Speaker 2: I think that's traditionally the way things occur in these
15:53
Speaker 2: kinds of transformations in America.
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Speaker 1: And do you think that's the best way also, as
15:57
Speaker 1: you mentioned, to... bring costs down in the system? Because
16:00
Speaker 1: obviously it's not just coverage. First of all, there's a
16:03
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of cost in the system, but there's also
16:05
Speaker 1: deductibles that people can't pay. There's long-term care that's not
16:10
Speaker 1: kicking in. How do you deal with all the sort
16:12
Speaker 1: of extraneous costs that people are grappling with in health
16:15
Speaker 1: insurance and health care?
16:17
Speaker 2: And that all, you're right, the aggregation, the accumulation of
16:22
Speaker 2: the worry and anxiety around all these costs is what's,
16:25
Speaker 2: I think, driving people nuts. I think it's a big
16:27
Speaker 2: part of why we're seeing an epidemic of depression and
16:31
Speaker 2: all kinds of mental health challenges across the country. First,
16:35
Speaker 2: let me just say, I think you have to start
16:38
Speaker 2: every discussion as that health care is a right and
16:41
Speaker 2: not a privilege. And I, you know, in 1973, when
16:43
Speaker 2: I was a student at this little college in Connecticut,
16:46
Speaker 2: I helped a friend start a community health center, which
16:48
Speaker 2: now is still in business, has over 200 locations in Connecticut.
16:53
Speaker 2: But they're basic argument was life, healthcare is a right,
16:57
Speaker 2: not a principle. I wrote a letter to the Middletown
16:59
Speaker 2: Press editor saying that in 1978. I think that was
17:03
Speaker 2: when Elizabeth Warren was still a Republican. Oh, I'm just kidding.
17:06
Speaker 2: That's just a minor, a soft-hearted joke. Anyway, you look
17:11
Speaker 2: at all the places that these costs swing into play.
17:14
Speaker 2: So why is it that people in America pay 30
17:17
Speaker 2: times more for insulin than someone in Canada? Clearly, we've
17:21
Speaker 2: got to regulate the pharmaceutical industry. We've got to make
17:24
Speaker 2: sure we have more access to generics. We've got to
17:26
Speaker 2: be able, both at Medicare, but as groups in the country,
17:30
Speaker 2: be able to compete for better prices for pharmaceuticals. That's
17:33
Speaker 2: a significant cost. We also need transparency. That's probably a
17:36
Speaker 2: bigger place of savings. Every clinic, every hospital, they'll tell
17:41
Speaker 2: you that it's too complex. The possible variations in needs
17:46
Speaker 2: and services provided make it impossible to predict what a
17:50
Speaker 2: tonsillectomy would cost for their kid. That's nonsense. Walk into Walmart.
17:55
Speaker 2: You got 130,000, you know, digits and widgets. And with
18:00
Speaker 2: sizes and colors, you probably got 400,000 SKUs. They can
18:04
Speaker 2: tell you the cost of every one. And once you
18:07
Speaker 2: can provide people a genuine, on their handheld device, their
18:11
Speaker 2: cell phone, they can look and see where they can
18:13
Speaker 2: get a high quality, you know, get stitches removed from
18:17
Speaker 2: their kid's arm or get a tonsillectomy for their kid, whatever.
18:20
Speaker 2: They can see not only what the overall cost is,
18:23
Speaker 2: but what their copay is, then you begin to harness
18:25
Speaker 2: the leverage that an open market allows you to get to.
18:30
Speaker 2: So those are obvious places right off the bat where
18:33
Speaker 2: we can save. More importantly, our problem is we've made
18:36
Speaker 2: healthcare into a business, and like any business, it goes
18:39
Speaker 2: where the money is. So it's only natural to suspect
18:43
Speaker 2: that we're going to get more scans, more blood tests,
18:48
Speaker 2: more everything. Because that's how the industry pays for things.
18:52
Speaker 1: Quantity, not quality.
18:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no way. We should shift the system so
18:57
Speaker 2: the health care system gets compensated for keeping us well.
19:02
Speaker 2: And that's why we're huge in Colorado. We pushed outdoor
19:04
Speaker 2: recreation so strongly. And I think I'm pushing trying to
19:08
Speaker 2: get outdoor recreation to get more integrated into urban areas
19:12
Speaker 2: and get more people outside and provide an incentive for
19:16
Speaker 2: kids just to get their faces out of there. You know,
19:19
Speaker 2: I've got a 16-year-old son. His face is always in
19:21
Speaker 2: a screen. He'll hate me for saying that.
19:23
Speaker 1: Mine too. It's a problem.
19:26
Speaker 2: It is. But anyway, that is that preventative of, A,
19:30
Speaker 2: getting people to lead healthier lifestyles of their own choice,
19:33
Speaker 2: but really giving them the incentives and making it attractive
19:36
Speaker 2: is a big part of getting to a place where
19:38
Speaker 2: we have a system that we can begin to contemplate
19:41
Speaker 2: how do we reward the system for keeping us healthy.
19:44
Speaker 1: Let's talk about climate change. You wrote an op-ed that
19:49
Speaker 1: said that the Green New Deal resolution introduced by Alexandria
19:53
Speaker 1: Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey sets us up for failure. How
19:58
Speaker 1: do you think we should reach the goal of you know,
20:04
Speaker 1: net zero global emissions by 2050, which is what the
20:07
Speaker 1: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says.
20:09
Speaker 2: And, you know, I share 1,000% the sense of urgency
20:14
Speaker 2: that the Green New Deal communicates, and I've celebrated for that.
20:18
Speaker 2: I think the problem, I think we've got to be
20:21
Speaker 2: laser-focused on climate change. And I look at that, especially
20:25
Speaker 2: the federal jobs guarantee, that that would get caught up
20:29
Speaker 2: in Congress. And you can imagine the battles that'll take place.
20:32
Speaker 2: And even if the Legislation got passed. The implementation would
20:36
Speaker 2: require almost certainly judicial challenges. Everything would gum down the process.
20:42
Speaker 2: I look at how we're going to address climate change.
20:47
Speaker 2: And we know already, we know that things like electricity, transportation, buildings,
20:53
Speaker 2: we know that there are ways that society as a
20:56
Speaker 2: whole can save money by doing the right things. We've
20:59
Speaker 2: got We're closing two coal plants in Colorado right now,
21:03
Speaker 2: replacing the coal-fired electrical generation plants with wind, solar, and batteries.
21:09
Speaker 2: No natural gas at all. And the monthly electric bill
21:12
Speaker 2: for all those consumers is going to go down. That's
21:14
Speaker 2: when the market begins to change. And some things like
21:18
Speaker 2: agriculture and large-scale manufacturing is still, we don't quite have
21:24
Speaker 2: the final solutions there. But we need to be laser-focused
21:28
Speaker 2: on everything, on production. you know, how do we get
21:31
Speaker 2: the recharging stations necessary for, you know, rapid recharging of
21:35
Speaker 2: electric vehicles everywhere, right? And in real time, you know,
21:40
Speaker 2: we took our Volkswagen diesel settlement money and put it
21:44
Speaker 2: towards recharging stations, and then we kind of snuck around
21:47
Speaker 2: and convinced Governor Herbert in Utah that he should do
21:49
Speaker 2: it so drivers could get out to California, and then
21:52
Speaker 2: we got Governor Bullock in Montana to do it, and
21:54
Speaker 2: we got, you know, kind of went around, and then
21:57
Speaker 2: I went to Governor Matt Mead, who's one of my
21:59
Speaker 2: favorite mayors. But, you know, Wyoming's a pretty big coal state,
22:04
Speaker 2: pretty good oil and gas state. And I went to
22:06
Speaker 2: Matt and said, you know, you don't want people to
22:08
Speaker 2: drive around Wyoming to get to Yellowstone Park, do you?
22:11
Speaker 2: And he laughed. But the next day he said, yeah,
22:13
Speaker 2: we'll start. We'll build it. We'll be part of the
22:15
Speaker 2: network as well. In the end, we got all 10
22:17
Speaker 2: Western states, you know, five Republican, five Democrat, to all
22:21
Speaker 2: agree that they want to be part of that network.
22:23
Speaker 2: That's the kind of integrated work that gets it done
22:25
Speaker 2: in the United States. But as you point out, then
22:27
Speaker 2: we've got to go globally. What we do in the
22:29
Speaker 2: United States is never going to be the final solution
22:32
Speaker 2: or the best solution for climate change. It's got to
22:36
Speaker 2: be global.
22:37
Speaker 1: Well, so Beto O'Rourke this week released a plan that
22:41
Speaker 1: basically is in line with the targets set by the
22:44
Speaker 1: Green New Deal resolution, but doesn't have some of the
22:48
Speaker 1: economic proposals that you were talking about, like the federal
22:51
Speaker 1: job guarantee. Is that something you think we should pursue?
22:54
Speaker 1: I guess my big question here is Like in a
22:57
Speaker 1: normal time, we could like experiment with all these different
23:01
Speaker 1: sort of renewable energy, clean energy investments and incentives. Basically,
23:06
Speaker 1: they're telling us within 10 years, if we don't have
23:09
Speaker 1: a mass mobilization in this country within 10 years, totally
23:12
Speaker 1: transform this economy and probably do more even than the
23:15
Speaker 1: rest of the world since we're bigger emitters, then we're
23:19
Speaker 1: going to have just devastation from climate change that we're
23:21
Speaker 1: not going to be able to come back from. So
23:24
Speaker 1: because of the situation we're in, Would you be willing
23:26
Speaker 1: to sort of take, you know, really significant steps, huge
23:31
Speaker 1: public investment of the scale that would, you know, get
23:34
Speaker 1: us to the solutions and the right technology in time,
23:37
Speaker 1: would transition the economy in time? Like, what do you
23:39
Speaker 1: think about that?
23:40
Speaker 2: I agree wholeheartedly. And I think it's got to be
23:44
Speaker 2: the trick, though. We are so polarized. And again, this
23:47
Speaker 2: is I get back to why I'm running for president.
23:49
Speaker 2: We are so divided. I mean, we're as divided as
23:52
Speaker 2: probably any time since the Civil War. And if we're
23:55
Speaker 2: really going to address climate change in a meaningful way,
23:59
Speaker 2: we've got to figure out how do we get everybody
24:01
Speaker 2: working on their own home or everyone focused on what
24:04
Speaker 2: they can do and supporting at a national level those
24:08
Speaker 2: big steps that you're describing. And, you know, I think
24:11
Speaker 2: that's doable. I think it's going to take a different
24:14
Speaker 2: approach than just using the, you know, the stick. You're
24:17
Speaker 2: going to need a little bit of a carrot in
24:19
Speaker 2: there as well to make sure people, you know, they
24:21
Speaker 2: see their own self-interest, their benefit from fixing this. And
24:25
Speaker 2: they've got to be, they've got to understand and buy
24:29
Speaker 2: into that issue of the damage that will be irreversible
24:34
Speaker 2: if we don't get this done in the next 10
24:35
Speaker 2: or 12 years. I think the one thing that is,
24:40
Speaker 2: has been missing that people haven't talked about a lot,
24:44
Speaker 2: that last year, Charles Koch said to the AF, the
24:50
Speaker 2: Americans for Prosperity, that they were no longer going to
24:55
Speaker 2: fund climate deniers. That was shocking. It got picked up
24:59
Speaker 2: in one news place. And now Exxon, all the major
25:03
Speaker 2: oil companies are saying they're no longer going to deny it.
25:06
Speaker 2: That allows us, this is a window where we can
25:09
Speaker 2: really mobilize public sentiment. Lincoln's old thing with public sentiment,
25:13
Speaker 2: nothing can fail without it, nothing can succeed. Now is
25:16
Speaker 2: the time to really mold public sentiment.
25:20
Speaker 1: You released a new trade policy today. Your communications director
25:24
Speaker 1: said that the Democratic Party has really struggled to respond
25:27
Speaker 1: to Trump's trade policy. Why do you think that is?
25:30
Speaker 1: And why do you think the last trade agreement that
25:33
Speaker 1: was negotiated by a Democrat, Barack Obama with the Trans-Pacific Partnership,
25:39
Speaker 1: was sort of divided the party?
25:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that trade has always been a tricky issue
25:46
Speaker 2: in the Democratic Party for a variety of reasons that
25:48
Speaker 2: I don't have to drag out on your show. I
25:51
Speaker 2: do think that we're seeing in a compelling way right
25:55
Speaker 2: now how misguided President Trump's policies are. I mean, you
25:59
Speaker 2: don't have to spend very much time in Iowa to
26:02
Speaker 2: run into a soybean farmer. One of the agricultural auditors
26:07
Speaker 2: in the state of Iowa told us that a typical
26:11
Speaker 2: soybean farmer would need eight consecutive good years to to
26:15
Speaker 2: get back to where they were two years ago. When
26:18
Speaker 2: you look at the projections for bankruptcies in farms all
26:21
Speaker 2: across the country, there are going to be a high
26:24
Speaker 2: probability you're going to see a dramatic increase, even in
26:27
Speaker 2: the next 12 months. A lot of that's this tariff war.
26:31
Speaker 2: It's not just the agricultural community. We have a bunch
26:34
Speaker 2: of manufacturing companies that are based on bringing components together
26:38
Speaker 2: from all different places. Where do they finally get assembled?
26:42
Speaker 2: Where what is the final place of manufacture? Some of
26:45
Speaker 2: these automobiles go back and forth between Canada, the United States,
26:48
Speaker 2: and Mexico, back and forth, back and forth. There is,
26:52
Speaker 2: if we really want to lift up the middle class
26:54
Speaker 2: and have it expand instead of shrinking, if we want
26:57
Speaker 2: to make sure that our American form of business provides, again,
27:03
Speaker 2: a ladder so that people at the bottom can grab
27:06
Speaker 2: ahold of that ladder and pull themselves up, I think
27:08
Speaker 2: trade has to be part of it. We just have
27:10
Speaker 2: to figure out How do we get trade in such
27:12
Speaker 2: a way that we protect in all countries that are
27:15
Speaker 2: part of any agreement that we protect workplace safety, workers' rights,
27:21
Speaker 2: protection of the environment? I mean, you go down that
27:23
Speaker 2: list of the basic items that we need in an
27:26
Speaker 2: agreement that they can be fair and they can be enforced.
27:30
Speaker 2: But some form of trade is going to allow us
27:33
Speaker 2: the resources to deal with our health care situation, to
27:37
Speaker 2: deal with climate change. And those trade agreements lay the
27:40
Speaker 2: foundation for for, I mean, again, as we've already said,
27:44
Speaker 2: what we do around climate change in this country is
27:46
Speaker 2: never going to be enough. We have to have the
27:49
Speaker 2: world working together, and that comes from relationships.
27:52
Speaker 1: You want to use trade agreements to sort of, and
27:55
Speaker 1: you want to put climate targets in the trade agreement.
27:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you have to have climate targets in
28:00
Speaker 2: the agreement, but all the just all the negotiations, right?
28:04
Speaker 2: We used to believe in diplomacy, right? After World War II,
28:07
Speaker 2: our greatest generation created all these strategic alliances because they
28:11
Speaker 2: didn't ever want to see a world war. They had
28:13
Speaker 2: seen firsthand just how awful that kind of carnage and
28:18
Speaker 2: the destruction in a world war could be. And now
28:21
Speaker 2: it sounds like, well, we're going to take a little
28:23
Speaker 2: more risk towards that. We don't care so much. The
28:26
Speaker 2: beauty about the trade agreements, what started out as strategic
28:29
Speaker 2: agreements ended up helping for trade I think that collaborative
28:34
Speaker 2: ability is almost like a muscle that the people, as
28:37
Speaker 2: they begin to work together towards one goal, can work
28:40
Speaker 2: together towards another goal. And some of the issues like,
28:43
Speaker 2: you know, like pandemics, like Ebola, we have to have
28:46
Speaker 2: everyone working together. Nuclear proliferation and think about cybersecurity. We
28:52
Speaker 2: have to figure out a way that as a world,
28:57
Speaker 2: we are working together to make sure that we are
28:59
Speaker 2: not at risk and vulnerable to the cyber terrorists.
29:10
Speaker 1: You had the experience of being unemployed for some time
29:14
Speaker 1: in your 30s, and then you've also had the experience
29:18
Speaker 1: of going on to become a very successful business owner.
29:22
Speaker 1: How have those experiences shaped your views of economic policy?
29:27
Speaker 2: Here I am, unemployed again. Yeah.
29:31
Speaker 1: Going for a very big job.
29:32
Speaker 2: When I became a geologist, one of my interns a
29:36
Speaker 2: couple years ago told me that they are convinced I
29:39
Speaker 2: am the first professional geologist ever to get elected governor
29:43
Speaker 2: in the history of America.
29:44
Speaker 1: Seems like a safe bet.
29:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think it seems to be true. I
29:48
Speaker 2: know for a fact that I'm the first brewer since
29:49
Speaker 2: Sam Adams in 1792 to get elected governor. Oh, okay.
29:53
Speaker 2: But I think, you know, when... When I came out
29:57
Speaker 2: to Colorado, originally in the late 70s, I moved out
30:00
Speaker 2: permanently in 81. I thought I'd be a geologist for
30:03
Speaker 2: the rest of my life. And then, you know, the
30:06
Speaker 2: markets changed and commodity prices tanked. And our company and
30:10
Speaker 2: many other companies got sold and consolidated. And literally thousands,
30:16
Speaker 2: probably more than 10,000 geologists lost their jobs. So no
30:19
Speaker 2: one was hiring. I lost not just my job, but
30:22
Speaker 2: my profession. And, you know, the story I sometimes tell
30:25
Speaker 2: is that At first, you have your natural resilience that
30:29
Speaker 2: most people learn through the early years of their life.
30:33
Speaker 2: And my mom was widowed twice before she was 40,
30:37
Speaker 2: and she told us that you can't control what life
30:41
Speaker 2: throws at you, but you can control how you respond
30:43
Speaker 2: to it. Does it make you better or worse? So
30:45
Speaker 2: I felt pretty good. But after about, I don't know, six, eight,
30:49
Speaker 2: maybe 10 months of being out of work, you begin
30:52
Speaker 2: to see a different person in the mirror, and you
30:54
Speaker 2: don't have the same the same framework of confidence that
30:58
Speaker 2: you had. And just that little bit of self-doubt, I
31:02
Speaker 2: found myself having to really work hard to change my attitude.
31:08
Speaker 2: And by this time, we had the notion, we thought
31:09
Speaker 2: we might start this wild thing called a brew pub, right?
31:13
Speaker 2: And no one knew what a brew pub was. I mean,
31:14
Speaker 2: like most entrepreneurial opportunities, there's a vacuum because no one's
31:18
Speaker 2: ever seen it. I mean, I couldn't get my own
31:20
Speaker 2: mother to invest. It was just, it was hard. And
31:24
Speaker 2: And having that doubt in my mind about, you know,
31:29
Speaker 2: my own career and was I a failure? Was it
31:31
Speaker 2: my fault that all these geologists got laid off, or
31:33
Speaker 2: at least that I had chosen to be one of
31:35
Speaker 2: these geologists, and now I didn't have a career? I
31:38
Speaker 2: think that's a lot of what went through the minds
31:40
Speaker 2: of so many of the people that voted for Donald Trump, right?
31:43
Speaker 2: In the 80s and 90s, there, and it wasn't just
31:47
Speaker 2: all outsourcing, right? That's what the anti-trade people said. A
31:50
Speaker 2: lot of it was automation that eliminated a lot of
31:53
Speaker 2: those jobs. But regardless of where we did a, I mean,
31:57
Speaker 2: it was government malpractice. We did a terrible job of
32:00
Speaker 2: retraining people and giving them tools to create their own
32:04
Speaker 2: new future. And if we do that again, we're going
32:07
Speaker 2: to see the same thing from automation and artificial intelligence.
32:11
Speaker 2: The whole, our professional world is going to get turned
32:14
Speaker 2: upside down. Whole professions are going to disappear. We need
32:18
Speaker 2: to get out ahead of this. And we've got a
32:20
Speaker 2: partnership with Microsoft now called skillful.com. just rudimentary so far,
32:24
Speaker 2: but it'll allow people, kids of all ages, to acquire
32:28
Speaker 2: a profile of skills. But more importantly, hopefully we'll be
32:31
Speaker 2: able to get to predicting three, four, five years out
32:36
Speaker 2: which professions are likely to be at risk and not
32:40
Speaker 2: threaten or scare people, but just say, hey, here are
32:42
Speaker 2: the skills you already have. If you go on to skillful.com,
32:46
Speaker 2: these are new professions. Click on a profession, see which
32:49
Speaker 2: skills you have that are useful, what skills you might
32:52
Speaker 2: be missing, what you need to acquire and where you
32:54
Speaker 2: can get them and what it would cost. And that's
32:57
Speaker 2: the part I think that we need to make those
32:59
Speaker 2: skills essentially free for people that can't afford them. It
33:02
Speaker 2: should be a sliding scale, but just like a community
33:04
Speaker 2: health center, they've got to be free if you don't
33:06
Speaker 2: have the money and let people, I mean, what I
33:09
Speaker 2: learned from being laid off was the anxiety and the
33:13
Speaker 2: frustration that I saw, especially in a lot of my friends.
33:17
Speaker 2: It was so disruptive. See, I didn't have kids. I
33:21
Speaker 2: didn't have a family to support. there was much less
33:23
Speaker 2: pressure on me than almost everyone else I knew. And
33:27
Speaker 2: I think if we can get people trained and get
33:29
Speaker 2: those skills before their career, their life is at risk,
33:34
Speaker 2: you eliminate that anxiety to a large extent.
33:36
Speaker 1: So we're talking at a time of very low unemployment,
33:41
Speaker 1: the economy's growing, and yet Federal Reserve found last year
33:46
Speaker 1: that 40% of Americans couldn't pay... a $ 400 bill if
33:52
Speaker 1: there was an emergency expense. What do we do for
33:55
Speaker 1: all the people who are working, but they still can't
33:59
Speaker 1: afford a basic middle-class lifestyle? Sure.
34:02
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, the statistic that's even worse
34:06
Speaker 2: than that one is that 80% of the families in
34:09
Speaker 2: America today are having a hard time pretty much every
34:12
Speaker 2: month balancing their household budget. At the end of every month,
34:15
Speaker 2: they can't make ends meet. That's not America. And So obviously,
34:20
Speaker 2: I think raising the minimum wage, and maybe in certain
34:23
Speaker 2: places it goes faster than others, and maybe big cities
34:26
Speaker 2: where it's really more expensive to live, like New York
34:28
Speaker 2: or maybe San Francisco, maybe have an even higher than
34:31
Speaker 2: $ 15 minimum wage. But you tie it in some way
34:34
Speaker 2: to the cost of living. But there's much more to
34:37
Speaker 2: it than that. I mean, our system used to be,
34:40
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, our economic system was a
34:43
Speaker 2: place where, you know... not just the middle class, but
34:48
Speaker 2: people in the bottom of the economic ladder, they could
34:50
Speaker 2: find both security and opportunity just by working and working
34:55
Speaker 2: hard and playing by the rules. And that's clearly not
34:58
Speaker 2: the case anymore. And, you know, part of it is,
35:00
Speaker 2: and these are not evil people, I'm not demonizing, but
35:03
Speaker 2: there are 81,000 trade associations out there, right? The sand
35:07
Speaker 2: and gravel providers of America, the bridge builders of America,
35:11
Speaker 2: the restaurant association here or there, all these trade associations
35:15
Speaker 2: have a lobbyist. And again, I'm not against lobbyists, right?
35:19
Speaker 2: They're hardworking and representing the associations they work for. But
35:26
Speaker 2: their job is to find another opportunity, retained earnings or
35:30
Speaker 2: a tax break that their business can get. Well, all
35:33
Speaker 2: those breaks that have accumulated over all these years have
35:36
Speaker 2: added up. Yeah. You know, the other statistic, and then
35:40
Speaker 2: I won't say any more statistics, I promise, because I
35:42
Speaker 2: know what good radio is, and it's not statistics.
35:44
Speaker 1: We love statistics.
35:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet. You like humor more than statistics, but
35:49
Speaker 2: sometimes they're relevant. And I think from 1946 to 1980,
35:54
Speaker 2: when Reagan got elected, basically adjusted for inflation, every American
36:00
Speaker 2: doubled their income. That's an amazing statistic. The only people
36:03
Speaker 2: that didn't were at the very top of the economic ladder.
36:05
Speaker 2: They're very wealthy. only, their income only went up about 80%,
36:09
Speaker 2: but they started out so much higher that they still
36:11
Speaker 2: were doing great. And then there was, obviously, government was bad,
36:17
Speaker 2: trickle-down economics, this is all going to benefit everyone else
36:21
Speaker 2: more and more and more. If you go from 1980
36:23
Speaker 2: to the present day, 50% of Americans are making less
36:26
Speaker 2: now than they were before. That's staggering. I mean, how
36:30
Speaker 2: clearly do you want to demonstrate that our system is broken? So,
36:34
Speaker 2: A lot of those things that the lobbying community created
36:37
Speaker 2: over many, many years, a lot of them are loopholes.
36:40
Speaker 2: I think we should go in and address them and
36:43
Speaker 2: just try and make it a level playing field as
36:45
Speaker 2: much as humanly possible. Make sure that people get paid
36:50
Speaker 2: a fair wage for a fair day's work and make
36:53
Speaker 2: sure that companies pay. I don't know if you saw
36:56
Speaker 2: the thing the other day that there are 60 Oh,
37:01
Speaker 2: one more statistic. Sorry. This is the last one, I swear.
37:03
Speaker 1: I'll tell yours.
37:04
Speaker 2: 60 Fortune 500 companies are paying no taxes for last year,
37:11
Speaker 2: and that's double the number before Trump's tax cut. I mean,
37:16
Speaker 2: so all of a sudden now we've got more. He
37:18
Speaker 2: said he was going to get rid of all the
37:19
Speaker 2: loopholes and all, and that we're going to lower their taxes,
37:22
Speaker 2: but they'd pay more taxes. Right. Well, somehow that doesn't
37:25
Speaker 2: seem to have happened. You know, I haven't heard much
37:27
Speaker 2: of an outroar.
37:28
Speaker 1: Would you get rid of the Trump tax cuts, the
37:31
Speaker 1: tax cut that was passed by the Republican Congress?
37:34
Speaker 2: Certainly, I would look at... I thought that we needed
37:37
Speaker 2: to reduce the corporate tax cut a little bit, somewhat,
37:40
Speaker 2: probably somewhere between where it is now and where it
37:42
Speaker 2: was there. I certainly would have tried to take the
37:46
Speaker 2: money and put it towards something like infrastructure. Some of
37:49
Speaker 2: that savings is really dedicated towards transportation, broadband. Colorado is
37:54
Speaker 2: going to be And by the end of 2020, we'll
37:56
Speaker 2: be the first state in America to have broadband in
37:58
Speaker 2: every city and town. Wow. Yeah, we're very proud of that.
38:01
Speaker 2: So we want our share back when the federal government
38:04
Speaker 2: actually doles out the money for broadband for everybody.
38:07
Speaker 1: So, you know, you made this great case about how
38:09
Speaker 1: sort of the middle class has been hollowed out. And obviously,
38:12
Speaker 1: you know, Republican policies, tax cuts for the rich, not
38:16
Speaker 1: much for everyone else. Democrats have, you know, been pushing
38:20
Speaker 1: for universal health care, skills training, living wage, all the
38:23
Speaker 1: stuff you talked about. And yet we've seen this sort
38:26
Speaker 1: of exodus from the party of white working class, non-college
38:31
Speaker 1: educated voters. We've maintained, you know, African-American working class voters,
38:36
Speaker 1: Latino working class voters. But the white voters have been leaving.
38:40
Speaker 1: And some people might say it helped tip the election
38:42
Speaker 1: to Trump in 2016. How do you view this? Are
38:46
Speaker 1: these voters we should be getting back? Or is there
38:50
Speaker 1: racial and cultural resentment there that we can't? We can't
38:53
Speaker 1: get back. How do you see this?
38:56
Speaker 2: Well, there's certainly, there is friction in the large generalities
39:02
Speaker 2: within what you're describing. But, you know, at least in Colorado,
39:05
Speaker 2: and I think across the country, there are opportunities. And
39:08
Speaker 2: part of it is, you know, looking at how do we,
39:12
Speaker 2: how do we bring together the people that feel left behind?
39:16
Speaker 2: And oftentimes it's not just black people, Latino people, a
39:19
Speaker 2: lot of those rural white Workers in small towns and
39:23
Speaker 2: in rural parts of our states feel tremendously left behind.
39:28
Speaker 2: You know, part of why we push broadband in all
39:30
Speaker 2: parts of Colorado was we made a commitment. When I
39:32
Speaker 2: first got elected, we were 40th in job creation. I said, well,
39:35
Speaker 2: we're going to be pro-business, the most pro-business state, but
39:38
Speaker 2: with the highest ethical standards, the highest environmental standards. And
39:42
Speaker 2: part of that goal was to make sure we lifted
39:44
Speaker 2: up the entire economy, but we didn't leave the rural
39:47
Speaker 2: parts behind. And so we all last year, U.S. News
39:51
Speaker 2: and World Report ranked us for the second year in
39:53
Speaker 2: a row as the number one economy in America. So
39:55
Speaker 2: we went from 40th in job creation to the number
39:57
Speaker 2: one economy. But we're going to have, this year, I think,
39:59
Speaker 2: we're going to have the number one rural economy or
40:01
Speaker 2: one of the top rural economies. And I've got a
40:04
Speaker 2: bunch of mostly Republican farmers out on the Eastern Plains
40:08
Speaker 2: that send me emails and texts saying, you've got to
40:11
Speaker 2: run for president. And they want to come campaign with
40:13
Speaker 2: me in Iowa and say, here's what Hickenlooper did in Colorado.
40:16
Speaker 2: Here's what he could do in Iowa. Imagine what he
40:18
Speaker 2: could do for the country, and I think that's providing
40:22
Speaker 2: tools like skills training, making sure that every small town
40:25
Speaker 2: has broadband. We provided tax incentives, and not that many
40:32
Speaker 2: businesses or entrepreneurs took part of it, but if you
40:35
Speaker 2: go and start a business in a rural part of Colorado,
40:39
Speaker 2: for the first four years, not only does your business,
40:42
Speaker 2: but also none of your employees pay any taxes of
40:44
Speaker 2: any kind to the state of Colorado. Four years. Again,
40:48
Speaker 2: I think it's 800 jobs or 1,000 jobs we've created.
40:52
Speaker 2: But if you're in a town with 1,600 people or 2,000
40:55
Speaker 2: people and it's been getting smaller and people are leaving
40:57
Speaker 2: harder for the grocery store to stay in business, and
41:00
Speaker 2: suddenly you've got 20 new workers at a new business
41:04
Speaker 2: or 30, the feeling that someone cares and that there's
41:07
Speaker 2: hope and that there's a future, I think it's powerful.
41:10
Speaker 2: And I think there are ways to do that all
41:12
Speaker 2: across America.
41:14
Speaker 1: You mentioned Aurora earlier. In the wake of that shooting,
41:19
Speaker 1: you took on the NRA. You were able to pass
41:23
Speaker 1: universal background checks, bans on high capacity ammo. And this
41:28
Speaker 1: was with one of the houses was Republican, right, in Colorado?
41:32
Speaker 2: No, no. At that time, we had a one vote
41:33
Speaker 2: majority in the Senate.
41:35
Speaker 1: What lessons do you take from passing gun safety measures
41:41
Speaker 1: in Colorado that we might be able to apply to
41:43
Speaker 1: the country?
41:44
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the one thing I hadn't thought through
41:48
Speaker 2: was the power of local statistics. And the funny story,
41:51
Speaker 2: my son Teddy at that time was in fifth grade,
41:54
Speaker 2: and I made the mistake of complaining to him when
41:57
Speaker 2: I got home because it was just a battle at
41:59
Speaker 2: the state capitol. And he looked at me and he goes, Dad,
42:03
Speaker 2: what do you do all day at work that's so hard?
42:05
Speaker 2: Make decisions? He goes, Dad, get the facts, make a decision,
42:10
Speaker 2: check next. I said, well, Teddy, it's not that easy. Dad,
42:13
Speaker 2: get the facts, make a decision, check, next. He goes,
42:15
Speaker 2: every day I've got to go to school and learn
42:17
Speaker 2: something completely new that I didn't even know existed the
42:20
Speaker 2: day before. If I don't get it perfect, the next
42:22
Speaker 2: day is misery because everything's based on the day before.
42:24
Speaker 2: After five minutes, I said, Teddy, you're right. Fifth grade
42:27
Speaker 2: is harder than being governor. But the next day I
42:30
Speaker 2: went in and I got the statistics. We had the
42:33
Speaker 2: national statistics for gun safety and universal background checks, but
42:37
Speaker 2: we hadn't gotten the local statistics. And Even though every
42:40
Speaker 2: Republican business person I knew was in favor of universal
42:43
Speaker 2: background checks, the Republican Party, largely because of the NRA,
42:48
Speaker 2: wouldn't give an inch. And the NRA wouldn't compromise. And
42:52
Speaker 2: based after my talk with Teddy, I went and we
42:54
Speaker 2: got the local statistics. And in Colorado, just 5.5 million people.
42:59
Speaker 2: There were 38 people. This is in 2012, so the
43:01
Speaker 2: year before this legislative session. There were 38 people convicted
43:05
Speaker 2: of homicide who tried to buy a gun and we
43:07
Speaker 2: stopped them. We were getting to 50% of all the
43:09
Speaker 2: gun purchases, which is what most states get to. And
43:12
Speaker 2: we wanted to get to 100%. And the Republicans said, well,
43:15
Speaker 2: crooks aren't stupid. Well, we went through 133 people convicted
43:18
Speaker 2: of sexual assault, tried to buy a gun, and we
43:20
Speaker 2: stopped them. There were 1,300 people convicted of felony assault,
43:24
Speaker 2: tried to buy a gun, and we stopped them. There
43:26
Speaker 2: were over 3,000 people convicted of felony assault. And 140 people,
43:30
Speaker 2: when they came to pick up their new gun— We
43:33
Speaker 2: arrested them for an outstanding warrant for a violent crime.
43:36
Speaker 2: So when you take those local statistics, let me just say,
43:39
Speaker 2: once we laid those out, a bunch of the Republican
43:42
Speaker 2: legislators said, I'm not going to try and repeal this.
43:44
Speaker 2: So even when they came back, they repealed two Democrats,
43:48
Speaker 2: two of the state senators. So the Republicans got the
43:50
Speaker 2: majority back in the state Senate. But those statistics are
43:54
Speaker 2: so powerful locally. And I think we've got to go
43:56
Speaker 2: all across the country and get the local statistics in
43:59
Speaker 2: front of the lawmakers and get them into the local
44:01
Speaker 2: media so that I mean, national statistics are powerful, but
44:05
Speaker 2: it's not quite the same as thinking about who's living
44:08
Speaker 2: down the road and who's trying to buy a gun
44:10
Speaker 2: who might do harm to your family.
44:13
Speaker 1: In addition to the tragedy in Aurora, I read that
44:16
Speaker 1: in your first term as governor, you attended more than
44:19
Speaker 1: 50 funerals, whether it was natural disaster or shooting like Aurora.
44:26
Speaker 1: Did that change you? Did that give you a new
44:29
Speaker 1: perspective on grief? I know it did for for president
44:33
Speaker 1: Obama and all the, you know, funerals that, that he
44:36
Speaker 1: spoke at and attended after all the shootings that, uh,
44:39
Speaker 1: that occurred when he was in the white house.
44:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't think it could help, but change you that, uh, and,
44:47
Speaker 2: and I felt it was a blessing that he came,
44:49
Speaker 2: you know, we had the Waldo Canyon fire, uh, in
44:53
Speaker 2: the late spring of, of, uh, of 2012, uh, And
44:58
Speaker 2: then we had the shooting in the Aurora movie theater
45:00
Speaker 2: in July of 2012. And the president generously came out
45:04
Speaker 2: both times to console the people with losses. And he
45:10
Speaker 2: has a gift. I mean, I thought it was a
45:11
Speaker 2: gift and asked him after we met with all the
45:15
Speaker 2: surviving family members of the 12 deceased victims of the
45:19
Speaker 2: Aurora shooting. He was so... It was almost... beyond words
45:25
Speaker 2: to describe, but he was one with those families. He
45:28
Speaker 2: knew just, and he would stand with them for, it
45:32
Speaker 2: felt like minutes, but it was at least 10 seconds
45:35
Speaker 2: without saying something and then know exactly who to embrace.
45:39
Speaker 2: And he changed their, I've heard several of those people
45:42
Speaker 2: come and later tell me that he transformed something that
45:47
Speaker 2: was the worst experience in their life. It was still
45:49
Speaker 2: the worst experience, but he transformed it in a way
45:52
Speaker 2: that somehow they, they came out that, you know, that,
45:57
Speaker 2: that his, his ability to connect with them, uh, transformed
46:02
Speaker 2: the experience in a positive way, still the worst experience
46:04
Speaker 2: of their lives. But, and, and I asked him, I said, how,
46:08
Speaker 2: how do you do that? How do you have that talent?
46:10
Speaker 2: He says, it's not a talent, it's a craft. And
46:13
Speaker 2: once you've done it again and again and again, you
46:15
Speaker 2: begin to get a real sense of, of what it
46:19
Speaker 2: is people need and, and, and how different people express
46:22
Speaker 2: that need. Uh, and, And it's true. You do get
46:26
Speaker 2: better and you realize, you know, I mentioned my mom,
46:30
Speaker 2: her first husband died at the end of World War II.
46:33
Speaker 2: And she had two kids. He died in a freak accident.
46:36
Speaker 2: He was a pilot in Europe. And he came back
46:39
Speaker 2: to the United States and the day before he was
46:40
Speaker 2: going to get discharged, he died in a freak accident.
46:42
Speaker 2: And then she met my dad and she had two
46:44
Speaker 2: kids already and she had two more kids. I was
46:46
Speaker 2: the baby. And then he got intestinal cancer after they'd
46:50
Speaker 2: been married about six years, I think. Yeah, maybe seven years.
46:55
Speaker 2: And he died just after I turned eight. And my
46:58
Speaker 2: mom was so stoic. And she really told us, no
47:02
Speaker 2: one's going to create joy for you. You've got to
47:04
Speaker 2: take responsibility for yourselves. And you'll never be able to
47:07
Speaker 2: control what life throws at you. But you can control how, really,
47:13
Speaker 2: whether it does make you better or worse, stronger or weaker.
47:16
Speaker 2: And I think, in a funny way, when you go
47:18
Speaker 2: to that many funerals, as I did in those first
47:21
Speaker 2: four years, it was... And I'm not sure it was
47:26
Speaker 2: really 50. At one point, that's what we thought. I
47:28
Speaker 2: went back and tried to check it. And I think
47:31
Speaker 2: we counted 34. It was a lot. It felt like,
47:34
Speaker 2: I can't tell you. And so often, it's interesting. And
47:38
Speaker 2: I was sitting with the parents of a young soldier
47:41
Speaker 2: who died in Iraq and had gone to his funeral.
47:44
Speaker 2: And there was a reception afterwards. And several of these
47:46
Speaker 2: families have stayed friends of mine to this day. And
47:51
Speaker 2: we're just sort of talking. And these kids, it was amazing.
47:54
Speaker 2: the best looking kid, the one all his friends loved,
47:57
Speaker 2: the one who wanted to volunteer and serve and protect
48:00
Speaker 2: his country. And as we were talking, it just came
48:06
Speaker 2: out that sometimes God takes the very best to make
48:11
Speaker 2: the rest of us realize how valuable and how precious
48:15
Speaker 2: not just life is, but how much we love each other.
48:18
Speaker 2: And we're all just sitting there crying at the same time.
48:24
Speaker 1: It's I mean, obviously, Donald Trump has not played the
48:30
Speaker 1: role of consoler-in-chief or any sort of national leader. And while,
48:36
Speaker 1: you know, as president, you can do a lot of
48:39
Speaker 1: good by passing a lot of policies, there also seems
48:41
Speaker 1: to be a role to play in bringing the country
48:44
Speaker 1: together and sort of being a moral leader. How do
48:47
Speaker 1: you see that role, especially in the wake of a
48:50
Speaker 1: Trump presidency?
48:51
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I never... has common decency been in
48:55
Speaker 2: such short supply? And, you know, when Trump was running
48:58
Speaker 2: and he began to get traction and, you know, I
49:04
Speaker 2: can't remember feeling more anxiety around a political wave. And
49:10
Speaker 2: my biggest fear right from the beginning was that all
49:13
Speaker 2: the young people in America look to the president for
49:18
Speaker 2: their moral compass. And how do you define common decency?
49:22
Speaker 2: What are the lessons, whether you call them Aesop's fables
49:26
Speaker 2: or from the Bible or the Koran, wherever you get
49:30
Speaker 2: your moral compass, the president has to somehow illuminate those values.
49:38
Speaker 2: as President Obama did, as I think President George W.
49:42
Speaker 2: Bush did. President Trump is the opposite. He seems determined
49:48
Speaker 2: to take any opportunity to divide people as he possibly can.
49:53
Speaker 2: And if that process of division, that action that divides us,
49:58
Speaker 2: if that results in somebody being bitterly heartbroken or feeling
50:03
Speaker 2: more pain, He seems to embrace that rather than have
50:09
Speaker 2: any level of empathy. I haven't felt anything that he
50:14
Speaker 2: said as, and I'm not putting this as an attack,
50:18
Speaker 2: I haven't felt he's expressed real empathy. He said empathetic
50:22
Speaker 2: type words, but not in a context, not with a tone,
50:25
Speaker 2: not in a way that I've ever recognized as real empathy. Yeah.
50:30
Speaker 1: Governor Hickenlooper, thank you so much for joining us.
50:32
Speaker 2: Well, it was my pleasure. Thank you so much.
50:34
Speaker 1: And good luck out there on the campaign trail.
50:36
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. All right.
50:50
Speaker 1: Thank you.