Drama Queens - Governor Andy Beshear

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

What does leadership for all really look like? What does it mean to rise above politics as a form of competition? What does it take for a Democrat to successfully lead in one of America’s reddest states? Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear opens up about the father who taught him how to lose, the woman whose cancer treatment showed him the power of government, and whether a run for president might be on the table.Governor Beshear's new book "Go and Do Likewise: How We Heal a Broken Country" is available here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Progress. Hello, friends. Welcome back to work in progress. Today, we get to sit down with somebody I have been hoping to get on the show. For such a long time, I am geeked that he's here. Today's guest is none other than Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. He is a rock star and certainly a political rarity, a Democrat who's one

three statewide elections in one of the red estates in America, including his most recent re-election by a very wide margin in 2023. And he's the son of a former Kentucky governor, so he grew up watching his father navigate the highs and lows of politics, even before his governorship serving as an attorney. Andy became a lawyer too and built a family, and only later realized he was going to follow his father's footsteps into public life. And now the stakes are just so much bigger in Kentucky with a country that's increasingly divided and Democrats really searching for a way back to, I don't know, I'd call it sanity. Governor Bashir is arguing that his party has got to do better communicating with voters, including the voters we've lost, including in places like

his home state of Kentucky. He has been voting. locally demanding answers about this crazy absence to Mitch McConnell's been on. He has also succeeded in doing absolutely incredible things for his state, like ending the rape kit backlog and erasing medical debt. And currently he's in the fight, as so many of us are, to stop these horrible cuts from doing things like kicking our kids off snap and hurting preschoolers. It's an awful lot to contend with.

And somehow he's managing to do it with such grace. In the midst of all this, Governor Bashir has done something that we might not have seen coming that I actually think is perhaps one of the coolest choices he's made. He's coming out with a new book. It's titled, Go and Do Likewise, How We Heal a Broken Country. And it's his argument through his own personal lens of faith that the idea of faith itself, whatever yours is, should be a force for compassion. should motivate us to service and should remind us that we have to have moral courage

rather than using our faith as a weapon for exclusion or even worse, damaging political power. He uses the parable of the Good Samaritan as the book's central framework to remind us that helping our neighbor applies to everyone. And sometimes we're the neighbor too. It's such a special story and it gave me a dose of hope that I sorely needed right now. And so I'm excited to talk to him about what's going on in his state, this very personal project, and we might even commiserate on how absolutely crazy it is to write a book and how it takes you for such a wild ride.

Let's dive in with the incomparable Governor Andy Bashir. Governor, you are obviously in the middle of a lot of incredible work. as a person who lived kind of, I'd say, in the southern neighborhood in all my years in North Carolina. I've paid so much attention to your governorship and what you're doing in your own state, and you've been a tremendous leader for Kentucky. But before I get to ask you about the landscape right now and the new book, I actually want to go back. I ask all my guests who they were before they were a household name.

And when I think about Andy Bashir as a boy, you know, a little 10-year-old, I feel like my question I normally ask might be more of a yes for you, because I always wonder, would the little version of you see himself in who you are now? But 10-year-old Andy was the son of a governor. So does that make the answer a more likely yes? So 10-year-old Andy wasn't the son of a governor, 30-year-old Andy was the son of a governor, 30-year-old Andy was the son of a governor. So you actually hit, when I was 10 years old, my dad had been the rising star in Democratic politics.

He'd been a state rep in his 20s, attorney general in his 30s. He turned 40 while being lieutenant governor, and he got into the 1987 governor's race. And it all should have worked out. But a former governor gets into the race who's popular, who helps start Kentucky Fried Chicken, and his wife was Phyllis George, who was on Monday night football at the time and been Miss America. And then a dark horse candidate with a failed political operative named James Carvel got in. He ends up winning, and Carvel's career then goes interstellar. But 10-year-old Andy watched his dad who he thought was Superman lose a race.

And I actually talk about that in my book, the most important thing I remember. about that election night is my dad, who is having his dreams just crushed in front of me, putting his arm around me and saying, we're going to be okay. It taught me so much about what being a good human being was like and being a dad. But I went on from that moment in middle school and high school because I thought I was supposed to. I ran for everything and I lost every time over and over and over again. If there were three people running, I would come in fifth. I mean, I had a talent for losing these elections.

And now I know the reason is that I was running because I thought I was supposed to, not that I had a burning reason to. And it's probably better to talk about how much Coke would be available in the cafeteria instead of trying to quote Bobby Kennedy when you're in a middle school election. Knowing your audience is probably important. But if you fast forward, you know, to college and beyond, I thought I was done. Wow. I was active in ways that I could be active.

But 2007 rolls around, I've moved back to Kentucky by this point. And my dad and I are trying to recruit somebody to run for governor. And I'm a 30-year-old lawyer. He's kind of end of his legal career. And we can't find anybody willing to take on a – incumbent that was pretty weakened. And so my dad finally says, what the heck? I'm going to do it. And wins. And so a guy who lost a race in 80-70, should have won, wins a race in 07, he should have no business winning. So at that time, I also thought I was probably done because I thought the most

important thing I'd ever do that touches politics would be help a dad achieve a dream he thought was dead. And I loved every minute of that campaign. I did more first. legal work for that man than anybody in my lifetime. But I got to actually help. Help a person who had raised me, achieve something that he had dreamed about for so long. Yeah, but there was something, I don't know, as an outsider who loves the story, that governorship swirled around the two of you. And I love that you joke about all the free legal work you did for him, because I know that's not cheap. No, it was not. That was a lot of billable hours I never got paid for. There you go. But do you think that it's that, that passion for the law in particular that you both share,

that perhaps made you both have such reverence for the office that you've now each held? Well, my dad grew up wanting to do this. I mean, this was as a, and he was a first-generation college student. He's the son of a Baptist minister in Western Kentucky. And I think it's his great uncle was a state rep. And he rode around and his pickup truck while he was out trying to get votes. And for whatever reason, this became his passion. It wasn't necessarily mine. But I wanted to help my dad. He gets elected.

And then there's another story in the book that's the moment, though, that he'd gotten elected and we're on an elevator in downtown Lexington. It's what we call the big blue building. I think it's called the Lexington Financial Center. I've been on that elevator 100 times,000 times. We're going up. It stops on two. And a woman gets on, looks at my dad and Burrude.

send it tears. And when she, you know, gets control of it, she says, I'm alive today because of you. So she had been diagnosed with cancer. She had been kicked off her insurance because they called it a preexisting condition. Somehow cancer could be a preexisting condition. But my dad became governor. Barack Obama became president. The Affordable Care Act passed. Dad expanded Medicaid. And suddenly, they had to cover her. And she had gotten treatments. She was cancer-free. And I just saw in that moment with that one individual that would not be alive but for what government had done, having the right people in charge with the right policies can make a real difference. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I think about that. I've gotten to see it sort of across the border in a really interesting way because my dad's from Canada.

And my dad moved to the states to go to college. And, you know, much like your dad, my mom on her side. first college student, you know, the first generation. School was always so important and so much of what my parents taught me about getting an education and getting ethics and being involved in service as I've gotten older and I got to work on ACA, you know, surrogacy and messaging in that time period. My dad and I got to talk so much about how living here and loving it here, he saw the difference between the amount of stress so many of his neighbors in America felt wondering if they'd be able to go to the doctor and how for his whole childhood in Canada,

that was just never a question. And I thought about the reduction in, I mean, national stress for people who get to go to the doctor. And what your dad did and what President Obama did, working toward a better goal for Americans is so major. And when I saw you as the governor, and I know I'm skipping ahead, but it's the moment to ask this question, sign your executive order to just erase all that medical debt

for eligible Kentuckians. $250 million. I mean, and the medical debt feels like such a scam. And it's so heavy. Yes. You're diagnosed with something that's out of your control to survive, you go to the hospital, and suddenly the bills are just crushing. And that's only part of the challenges with health care right now.

I mean, we were moving in the right direction. I was able to further expand Medicaid to vision, dental, and hearing. When questioned about it, I said, well, you want more people to go back to work, don't you? My Republican supermajority in the legislature said, yes. And I said, well, if they can't see to drive to work, can we get them a pair of glasses? If they can't hear well enough to be safe at work, can we get them that hearing aid? And they fought me, but we won there. We built two pediatric autism centers in Appalachia so that families were not told the best thing to do for their kids was to move.

I can't imagine hearing that. And then our largest African-American, traditionally African-American neighborhood in Kentucky is called West Louisville. We built the first hospital there in 150 years. It's incredible. It served 60,000 people the first year. And so we're making all these advances. Kentuckians are getting healthier. We're no longer number one, two, or three in diabetes, heart disease.

and lung cancer. And along comes the big ugly bill. Yeah. Donald Trump gets elected for a second time. And with the votes of all the Republican congressional members from Kentucky passes a bill that may shut 35 rural hospitals. Each the largest payroll in their community, each where people go to see a doctor.

And so who you elect in these places is the difference between whether you can see a doctor, whether you can afford a doctor. But even with the national headwinds, I had a chance to do something for those that they couldn't, that might be able to afford a house, but their credit rating was so bad. They didn't qualify because of medical debt they had no control on. And so was that part of your plan? you know, because we've seen executive orders clearly from he who shan't be named again in the White House do so much damage. And you as a governor used that power to do good for people. And by erasing that really predatory, you know, out of control interest building on that medical debt, to your point, people could get into houses. They could support their families in new ways. How do you do that as a leader

of a state, how do you figure out the best way to use your political muscle to help? Do you convene, you know, all the smartest people you know in economics and health care? Do you, do you analyze the last X number of years in state data and figure out what would change the most lives? Like, how do you do something that audacious? Oh, I listen to Kentuckians. I listen to the challenges they're facing in their daily life. Now, when you ask somebody what keeps you up at night, you start hearing their priority because, you know, you could go to an analyst and they could say, well, it's the cost of gas, which is way too high, or it's this. But a whole lot of Kentuckians said, it's what I owe after having to go to a hospital,

having no choice, and never being able to get out from under it. And it's impacting every other thing I'm trying to do right now. And it's also, if you step back, it's if I change one thing, how many other things does it help people with? Right. And what's the leverage point? I mean, this nonprofit that we work with for every $1 we put in, they get $100 of medical debt erased.

And so you also look for a pretty good deal. Absolutely. And at the end of the day, you know, you said this. People get frustrated with government, but good government is supposed to give people a good life. I just wonder for you, to your point, the headwinds are crazy from the other end and the big ugly bill is about to get worse.

How do you work on tackling these problems? Because to give you your flowers for a second, when you won as governor the first time, you won by a 5,000 vote margin. And then you won re-election by a much bigger margin because the people in Kentucky saw what great democratic policies were doing for their state. How are you breaking through all this noise

and really showing people the proof in the pudding of your leadership. So I think it's an approach that's three parts. First, as you've seen, I stand up for all my convictions, whether they are, whether they poll popularly in Kentucky or not. I vetoed every anti-LGBQ plus bill that's come to my desk. Thank you. I veto anti-choice bills because women should be able to make their own health care decisions. I veto anti-diversity bills because we are better off with different backgrounds at the table.

but I do spend 80% of my time on things that matter to 100% of the people of my state. Yeah. It's the idea that most people when they wake up in the morning, they're not that political. They're not thinking about the next race, and they don't have cable news on necessarily. They're thinking about their job and whether they make enough to support their family, the next doctor's appointment for them, themselves, their kids. They're thinking about the roads and bridges they drive, the school they drop their kids off at, and whether they feel safe in their community.

So we move the needle on those things in Kentucky. It lifts everybody up. It leaves no one out. It doesn't move us left or right. It just moves us forward. I think about Henderson, which is a town and a county in western Kentucky, former coal mining town. Most of those jobs were gone.

We landed the cleanest, greenest recycle paper mill in the world in Henderson, Kentucky. And the owner, Anthony Pratt, zooms in from Australia at the groundbreaking and says, we're creating 350. And then he says it, green jobs. And you know what everybody does? They stand up and give them a standing ovation because they pay 40 bucks an hour. Yes. Right?

They weren't worried about the politics there. They were seeing a better life. And we did three times better in that second election in Henderson than in the first. Of course. The second thing I try to do, and I think you've seen this, is talk like a normal human being. Mm-hmm. We had, as Democrats, a lot of advocacy speak creep into our lingo. It was for the right reasons, trying to reduce stigma.

But it had the opposite impact. It took the passion out of what we were trying to do. That big ugly bill kicked 11,000 Kentucky kids off food assistance. We want to reverse that. We can't be talking about food insecurity. We've got to be talking about hunger. Yes. When we lose people to an over,

It's not substance use disorder. It's addiction. And I know there are those that have tried to take the sting out of those words, but it's the sting that means something to us. It's the sting that brings the emotion of having lost someone or the joy of having somebody in recovery. And it's that that connects people and hopefully gets us all rowing in the right direction regardless of our party. But the last is in many ways why I wrote the book. It's a Democrats are really good at the what. We can tell you policy point two, sub point three, bullet point four, I, I, I, I. And as good there were people of substance. We need a little less what and a little more why. And an age of social media where people want to know you. We need to be talking about what motivates us, why we're willing to deal with the toxicity of politics. And for me, that's my family and my faith, the belief that everybody matters and that I'm supposed to leave this world better off than I found it.

It's so refreshing. And I think about that a lot. Sometimes we believe, well, here, if I give you all the information, you'll know I'm telling you the truth. But the information has to be communicated in a way that feels like a dinner table conversation and not so much a lecture. Amen. And I think you are particularly good at that. You know, I've watched some of your speeches. You know, I like to see what all my favorite dem governors are up to. and I, so I pay attention. And there are talks I've seen you give that really remind me of, you know, in the 90s, getting politically conscious as a middle schooler, watching President Clinton campaign and diffuse some of the ridiculous left versus right stuff. I'll never forget him sitting in a diner with a bunch of hunters being like,

I want you to be able to feed your family. Like, go get a deer during buck season. we just don't want kids to get shot at school. And it's what you're saying. It's a simple point of truth unless, let me give you the policy over here so you can know the guy over here is lying. Like, yeah, he's lying, but we got to talk to each other like people and less like data points.

It's also respect. It shows somebody a different level of respect to not just say my position is this, but why my position is what it is. When I vetoed the nastiest anti-trans bill, my state had ever seen, it was going to remove the ability of parents to make health care decisions for their kids' tough decisions that I know they wrestle with, but they're better being made by those parents than government in that moment. I explained my why.

I even went straight to camera and said, you know, I believe that, everybody are children of God. And I don't want people picking on those kids. Yeah. If my supermajority in legislature is going to show them hate, I wanted somebody in government to show them love. If they were going to show them judgment, I wanted them to see somebody showing acceptance. And I didn't lose a point.

I mean, the next day, I remember a guy walking up to me, I was open in a factory. That's the 8100 rule. The next day, you've always got to be back to that 80% that moves the needles for people's lives because a lot of these cultural issues, they call them, people aren't necessarily worried about your position on them. It's just the Republicans will say we spend 100% of our time on them when that's not true. We're out there trying to create better jobs and improve health care and improve education. But he comes up to me, and I was certain he was going to give it to me. You know, that's when you have this job. It happens. Yeah, you're bracing. Yeah, but I still remember

he said, Governor, I'm not sure I agree with what you did yesterday, but I know you're doing what you think is right. And that was enough for him, that he could potentially disagree, but if he had somebody he thought was doing what he thought was right and spent most of their time focused on the issues that matter to everyone, he was good. Yeah. Well, and I think that's a big, important through line for us, is, listen, you're doing your job as a governor and you're making sure it's not legal to pick on kids. That should be something everybody

can get behind. And that's as simple as saying that's a no. And you're back to the real, you know, big, chunky work of your day. And I think seeing you do that helps kind of undo, like you said, this talking point that for some reason anybody's subgroup would be all of our focus. We're trying to focus on every single person in our neighborhood, in our state. And I think that, that truth helps undo a lot of the culture war kind of talking point stuff that isn't helping anybody. I'm really curious since you're on your second term, you know, when you decided to run in the first place, you had your big law career, you had seen your dad achieve his dream. You know, You've talked so much about why you love standing up for Kentuckians, but I don't know what the moment, what was the aha moment? And I know you've shared it, but for anyone who hasn't read the book yet, like, how did you actually decide it was your time?

Well, first it was that elevator moment in watching that woman who would be dead from cancer, be alive because of good policy. But then it was the birth of my kids. My kids are now 17 and 16, so everybody out there, please pray for me. You're doing great. But I'm looking at these two kids that were truly miracles. I know people say that a lot, but it changed my life in a fundamental way. I never lacked for purpose after Brittany and I had Will and Lila. And I kept thinking, am I doing everything I can to build a better world for them? Are they better off just being?

more comfortable if I continued in my legal career, or can I actually change some of the things I'm seeing around me for the better? So I ran for Attorney General. It didn't initially run for governor. Was an attorney, thought I could do a good job on this. I was seeing opioid companies flood, our communities, pill mills, causing the deaths of so many people around me. I'd in my private practice developed youth protection programs for nonprofits and knew we could catch more child predators out there. We had a rape kit backlog where the bravery of a victim who was willing to go through that really intrusive, difficult test at the worst moment of her life. It had that bravery locked in a box, put on a shelf, and never even entered into the system. It's terrible.

And I thought we could do something about it. And so I ran. That night, the Democrat running for governor, who was expected to win, went down by eight points. And if you're down ballot, that normally means you're cooked. We won by 2,201 votes. That's my pen number. And then, and by the way, that night, watching the returns and how close they were, I took my son out of the room, told him it would be okay.

And we just ran up and down the hallway. He was little at the time. I didn't want that, I didn't want that stress to hang on him. So I get to be Attorney General, and what a great job. Yeah. You can choose the things you want to do in Crusade. We ended the rape kit backlog. I know you did.

Thank you for that. Well, it was just the right thing to do. We funded the upgrades at the Kentucky State Police Crime Lab. And now every one of those historic kits has been entered into our system. And we have solved crimes that occurred 20 or 30 years ago. those people shouldn't have had to wait that long to get justice. But it was worth it. We arrested more child predators than any Kentucky AG ever had. I sued more opioid companies than any other AG. And if I could have found more of them, I would have. I was so mad at what had happened to our people. But I had a

governor who was Trump before Trump, who tried to defund higher education illegally. I'm the attorney general. I sued him, and we won. He tried to cut state employees' pensions, 20 plus years in. Illegally. I took him on that and won. He spent every week attacking me. He would often do it on Fridays. And I try to figure out, that's a terrible news day.

Why are you doing this? Yeah. He's trying to ruin my weekend. Takes a certain kind of person. It does. I call him Trump Light in the book. But I still remember when I'm trying to figure out what's next, my pollster called me.

His name is Fred Yang. And at one point, he says, Andy, you're Kentucky's Obi-1 Canobi. You're our only hope. And I didn't want to not control my own destiny. This person had attacked me, talked about my kids, attacked my parents. And if he was going to do that,

he was going to have to face me in an election. And I'm a big Star Wars fan, so that didn't hurt either. Right. Yeah, that's a good boost. You go, ooh, that could be a sign of all the things you chose, you chose that. And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible. The music you love.

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Always free. Grab the free app. I heart radio. Everywhere you go. Always free. Download the free IHR Radio app today. It's interesting to me to fast forward to today. You have such an incredible record, again, on service in every arena.

Whether it was ending that rape kit backlog, whether it was expanding access to health care in your state, whether it's erasing all that medical debt, you know, protecting higher education. these are the things, as you said, that matter to 100% of us. I'm curious as a democratic leader in a red state, how do you figure out how to compromise for progress? Because I'm sure there have been moments where not everything is one of these big headline wins, where you have to meet in the middle, and the middle is probably painful for you. So how do you do that?

What carries you through? Oh, progress is progress. If I can move the needle, but I can't get everything I want, I'll take it. You know, my Republican supermajority won't fund pre-K. We are climbing so many rankings in Kentucky right now. It's exciting. But over half of our kids show up for kindergarten, not kindergarten ready. They know fewer numbers, fewer colors, fewer letters. Some aren't even potty trained. And what that does to the staff in kindergarten hurts all the kids. Yeah. This is a no-brainer to me. We've got the money to fund it. Why wouldn't we? And my legislative leadership voted for it under the last governor.

The only thing that's changed is the party of the governor. Well, they won't do it. So what did I do? I found flexible federal funds and started pilot programs where we now have five school districts, where every single four-year-old in those school districts has the opportunity for pre-K. Would I like it everywhere? Yes, so desperately. because every kid deserves that.

But I'm going to do whatever is in my power to move the needle as much as I can. The other thing is you can't stay mad. And I know that sounds strange, but there is so much back and forth in politics, so much name-calling. But if I stay mad about something that happens today, I might not be able to accomplish something

with someone tomorrow. And so I think that's putting your ego second and your people first. And this is, it's all ought to be about the, the people that, that you serve. Absolutely.

And that's good advice, you know, for, for any person and any kind of job. Because if, if you hold on to that anger, it's just sucking your energy for what you might do next.

And I'm curious if this applies in acting, too, because I got to see, with my dad being governor, that if you think the job you have makes you taller, smarter or better looking, it typically eats you up.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, not to be rude, but I have felt that way about another leader from your state for a very long time. I've watched Mitch McConnell. Well, sadly, we gave the country Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul. I apologize for both. You know what? I appreciate your apology. It's been weird as a person who pays attention to politics to watch him in his positions of leadership, you know, boast about his 40-year plan to undo education and love, to your earlier point, taking support away from people

as though our nation wasn't built on the generational inheritance of everybody chipping in. It's such a weird thing that the Republicans don't want everyone to participate in the fruits of American labor. But, you know, he doesn't want to give kids pre-K and he doesn't want moms to have paid leave, but he just got three months of paid leave. All Mitch McConnell cares about is a number of R's versus D's in the Senate. Right.

His willingness to break any previous rule, his willingness to change any position, his willingness to tolerate any level of cruelty is what has broken the Senate as it exists now. Prior to his leadership, if somebody had been gone for three months, the Republican or Democratic leader would have a duty, especially since they were all in D.C., to go check on them. to make sure they're okay, and you would think as a human being, you would want to do that for your colleagues. You know, as a state officer, a governor, I can't remove or just declare a vacancy for a federal office. If you had that power, can you imagine how much mischief would have happened

over the course of the history of this country? But how broken is the Republican-led U.S. Senate? if its leader says, I have no duty to determine if the members can serve, and that's between Mitch McConnell and the people of Kentucky. And I'm not trying to be mean to him with his age or his health. It's the fact that he is unwilling to acknowledge that the people of Kentucky are his boss. And that's why the Senate's so broken now, because that same ethos that he's applying now that he doesn't have a boss is the way that he led the Senate. Yeah.

And now his Republican successors are leading it. Yeah. Well, and that's what's been alarming to me to see for decades. As you said, the Senate, these seats, which are meant to be in service of the people that elect a senator, has been used like a bully pulpit to hoard power. and the fact that this pre-K bill won't pass because it's a Democratic governor. Yes. The fact that they wouldn't pass on the federal level immigration reform because they didn't want a Democratic president to have a win.

A hundred people are holding the 332 million of us who live in this country hostage to their power play. And it's weird to see it in, you know, people in their 80s. I'm going, you guys are fighting like nine-year-old boys arguing over an Xbox controller. And nobody's, nobody's giving you a dressing down for any of it? 100%. So here's what I think we do. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. How do we fix it? I think it's time for a fix the darn country constitutional amendment. Okay.

And I know we haven't seen a constitutional amendment in a while, but you know when they come, they come during times of turmoil. and we're certainly in one right now. We are. So here's what I think we do. First, we outlaw partisan gerrymandering fully, and we enshrine parts of the Voting Rights Act directly in the Constitution,

so a rogue Supreme Court can't do this ever again. People choose their representatives and senators, not the other way around. Second, it is time for term limits, certainly for Congress, but also for the Supreme Court. So you can't game a lifetime appointment, and when you make it,

just to keep a majority, and look at what happened here because of what Mitch McConnell has done. My wife and my daughter have fewer rights today than they did several years ago. Let's ban stock trading by members of Congress, individual judges, the president, so they can't enrich themselves. Let's overturn citizens united and let's get all that dark money out of politics. I think we ought to eliminate the electoral college and it ought to be a direct, election because candidates won't come to my state because they just assume the way it's going.

And it's decided in seven states, which creates, I think, federal administrations that don't understand all of the country. But I think if we put all that together, brought all those constituencies together, that there's not only more support, but we actually give the people of the United States something that would work. Yes. And something to your point that would work for everyone. Yes. Because the whole point of our country is that everyone is supposed to be equal in the eyes of the government and the law. And at this point, depending on where you live, your vote might count for a tenth of what someone's vote counts for in another state. And that's simply unethical. And to your point, it allows these hundred people to kind of cowboy the country

and not in a good way. And now a word from our sponsors. The music you love. I heart radio. Your favorite radio stations. Everywhere you go. The podcasts, everyone's talking about. All in one place.

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Download the free IHard Radio app today. Now, I'm not trying to get you to break any news or anything. But, you know, you're laying out a vision for America that I go, great. So when are you going to be the president? I know you aren't considering making a decision about 2028. You've got a lot on your plate. And I really respect that, too, that you want to get the things done that you need to get done as governor before you think about what comes next.

but clearly we've lost the plot on who gets to sit in the Oval Office because the reality star who's posting AI slop and defunding institutions that won't put his name on them when they're literally named after other presidents. I don't love that, just personal opinion. I would love a sane, smart person who legislates for all in that office. is it something that as you see the absolute elementary school shenanigans our country's falling apart into, do you think like, yeah, that might be a conversation I'd be willing to have down the road,

or because it's so kind of toxic out there, do you just want to continue to focus on your state? When I walked off the stage in 2023, haven't won a second term, but now being term limited. I looked at Brittany, my wife, and said, who I'll never have to run for anything ever again. But I'm not sure that's true today. We looked at where we were in 2023, and yes, our country never been perfect, but at least I felt we were moving in the right direction. We had an opportunity in front of us. I never thought a president could do as much damage as we've seen Donald Trump do. Yeah.

This tariff policy is breaking the best. bank for our families, making it impossible to get by, making younger Americans lose faith in our economy and the American dream. His foreign policy has taken us from leader of the free world to the bully on the playground. Where I am right now is I just will not leave a broken country to my kids or anyone else. Yeah. And so when I'm done being DGA chair, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, I'll have that conversation with my family. But I am less worried on what any future title will be for me, then getting this country back to a stable place

that, while imperfect, will hopefully be moving in the right direction where we can heal a lot of this divide, where some people can take a breath out and say, that went too far, and where you can go on vacation and not have to check the news every single morning and say, what the heck happened last night, where we don't get our entertainment out of the White House

or the Oval Office. I just think the next generations deserve so much better, and we cannot allow Donald Trump's presidency to be normalized for future generations. No. And on every level, you know, I think for a while there was this desire to feel more kinship, perhaps, more attainability with that office. I don't need to want to have a beer with my president. I need my president to be a good president and run the country.

And to be clear, Governor, if I'm in Kentucky anytime soon, I'd love to have a beer with you. You're great. But this idea that your president is supposed to feel like the funny guy down the hall, that's not it. The decorum of the office matters, the respectability of the office matters. And frankly, the desire to serve rather than take. You know, I always knew who Donald Trump was. I've got a lot of family, you know, in New York. We've all known forever. But what's crazy to me is to see him just so openly do oligarchy, just take the money, get the people that are supposed to be our foreign enemies, paying for his son's wedding. And like, they're just, they're just doing it. And I think to your point, I hope at least, that a lot of people will feel that. It's time to walk it back. It's time to get back to a little bit more honor for the office, if you will. And that brings me to my next question, which might feel like a pivot, but I don't think it is.

Because again, you've chosen to really move through the things on your to-do list, on your calendar, in a way that I really appreciate because I know you're doing the work. you know, doing your DGA work, figuring out what the next year will look like once you finish that appointment. I like that this was the moment you chose to write a book because I feel like, again, bummer, not a constituent, but a fan, that you're not writing a book to campaign for something. you're writing a book to give people essentially like a lamplight in the dark and say, hey, I know things feel rough right now. But here's what I've learned from my career so far.

And here are my ideas about how we build a better future. It feels like a real genuine share, not like a marketing thing, which is hard to come by in 2026. So am I guessing kind of right? Oh, I'm grateful. That was the goal of the book. And as you know, it is very raw and very vulnerable. My goal was to reclaim something really important to me, and that's faith and how it's used in public life. And I see Donald Trump warping the golden rule while claiming to be Christian, saying he hates his enemies and that your neighbor is the enemy from within. I view a lot of it as trying to, add words to the Bible. And typically the people who try to add words to the Bible believe the Bible is the word of God. It says, judge not, lest ye be judged, not comma, unless you look different, vote different, pray different, or love different. It says, except one another as Christ has accepted you. No comma, unless all of those things. It says, love your neighbor is yourself, period.

Period. And the book is called Go and Do Likewise, because the parable, the Good Samaritan, which I love so much, that's about somebody who, lifted somebody up who needed help and didn't kick them while they're down, isn't just a story. So in the Bible, Jesus tells that story, and then he looks at the crowd and says, now go and do likewise. Yes. Not a story, but an instruction to be good to one another. And so for me, this was telling my truth. How my faith guides me and how I treat people, but the duties we all have to each other.

And I wanted to provide a little bit of hope. Now when you've governed through COVID, when now I've governed through 17 federally declared natural disasters in six and a half years, a major plane crash, multiple helicopter crashes, and a mass shooting that took the life of one of my closest friends, you've had to find that light yourself a number of times.

And right now, our country needs to find that. it's not meant to be the revelation of the book. But what I think the central truth of the book is, is that people at their core are good. What I have seen over and over after natural disaster, after natural disaster, is that people don't do what Trump would say they would do, loot and look out for number one.

They do everything they can to help one another without caring what party people are in, what religion they're in. All the culture war stuff goes right out the window. Yeah. And people will do anything and everything to help people in their time of need. And so maybe, I think I call it the Great American Reset or just a reminder of that can help us be a little bit better and push back against those that are trying to make us a whole lot worse. Absolutely.

And I think it's beautiful. And I think to your point, the idea that we're supposed to look at these guideposts, whatever they are in our life, you know, wherever you find. your faith, wherever you find your belonging. The through line of every single good book of every single faith tradition is lend a hand, reach back for the person behind you, take care of your neighbor. You know, it might sound silly, but I think you'll be with me on this as a person who, you know, I grew up in a family with multiple faith traditions, so I studied all those and then all the rest. And we gather our investment in each other in the country, our taxes. The idea is you give what you can, it's supposed to be based on your income, obviously, except the billionaires don't pay any

taxes, which is crazy, but we'll work on it. You give it to the group so everyone may be taken care of. So no mother wonders how to feed her kid that night. You know, the person who succeeds this year, helps provide for everyone else to succeed. It's literally meant to be kindness for all, you know, fiscal policy that creates safety for all. And I actually think when government functions well, it's something you get to also have faith in. And that's something I'd like to see us get back to. So it really touched me as I've been ruminating on all these things to read your book in this moment, I was like, oh, man, I really needed this. Well, thank you. That's a great endorsement. You mentioned guideposts, and you're right.

They can be other faiths or they can be experiences, values. I think about Amy Acton, who's running for governor in Ohio. At one point, she and her brother, homeless. And they were living in a tent, and she would walk to school in the morning. And there was one neighbor that would feed her breakfast every morning. You could think if you grew up like that, that maybe you would spend your time making sure that you were okay. And looking out for yourself, which would make perfect sense. But she sees in her life that person that saw her that did not ignore her and helped her. And that is her guidepost, as strong as any other to try to do the right thing.

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i just had an experience you know a similar sort of aha moment with someone i got to chat with Dr. Annie Andrews, who's running for Senate in South Carolina, who we love. We would love to see a pediatrician get elected to that office. And we talked a lot about that. I asked her, you know, you had this big medical career. Why the shift? And she said, I looked at the kids that I care for. And I looked at how the Republican policies in my state made me unable to take care of them and their families. The Republican policies, my state took care away from our children. And you said it yourself, the big ugly bill took 11,000 children in your state off of the care plan that allowed them to eat at night. And these are just

not the things that we can settle for clearly. So I think it's, the book is really beautiful and I appreciate you writing it and sharing your story. But for all of us, it's not only a great story to read. It, It really is a dose of hope. Well, I'm grateful for it. It was a book that almost didn't happen. I don't know if you got to the acknowledgements. I was turned down for a book deal twice. Why?

Well, I was trying to write a traditional memoir, and I was unwilling to do what I think it takes. You know, my parents weren't perfect, but they were great, and I'm blessed for it. And I just wasn't going to write a critical chapter. I mean, anyone who has two parents even one that follows them into adulthood is so blessed that all I wanted to say in my book if I wrote about them was, thank you. And so my current agent sent a cold email that I ignored

for months until I finally talked with him and he just said, I think you're writing the wrong type of book. You're not writing about your why. Wow. And I'm glad he did. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what level of therapy writing this book was, having to go into your best and also your toughest moments and relive them. By the way, the most challenging thing is recording an audiobook. Yeah. I had never had a director before. It was a new experience for me. Yeah. In politics, normally, you just have eight people telling you to say something different or in a different way. But then you can still go out and say it the way you want. Once you've said it, it's done. Right.

So I'm learning a little bit about what your profession is when you might have to do it eight, nine, ten times. Oh, it's a trip, isn't it? I don't know if you had this, but I was doing the audiobook. And I had no way to prepare for the moments that would catch me off guard. And I got choked up at all these times that I didn't expect to. You know, you think you're going to get emotional when you're going through the really hard part of a chapter. but I was sort of knocked sideways, you know, talking about things that I love, things I feel like are worth preserving, the stuff I go to battle with the administration about, like our public lands. And I was like, am I crying over the American West?

Like, what's happening to me right now? What I found interesting was that you write it and you edit it and you edit it and you edit it and they keep sending it back. But by the time you sit down to read it, you don't remember that you wrote some things in it. And the toughest part for me to read was a couple sentences. I wrote directly for Tommy Elliott, who we lost in that shooting. I'm so sorry. I could not get out. Tommy, I don't know if there are audiobooks in heaven. But that was the line. But I got to remember so many amazing things about him. And the way I try to deal with grief is not to let the terrible way that something ends cloud the amazing parts that we all got to experience. And so just getting to

talk about my friend, the goofy way he dressed, but the wonderful person, the wonderful person that he is, was pretty special. There is really something about being able to memorialize a person and also the gratitude you feel for them. I struggled through a chapter about someone I lost as well. And yet, I feel so much good fortune that I get to be part of his memoriam in the historical record of us. Right. You know, and that's cool. You get to make sure that people see them for who who they are. Yeah. And if you don't tell that story, somebody else might. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really profoundly special. And what I appreciate, I don't know how it feels for you, but when you're a public figure of any sort, people know you about you, but they don't know all of you.

And there's something about writing a book in a weird way. I feel like it made me a little more like the Velveteen rabbit. I feel like it made me a little more real because I'm not just an article or a, you know, poll quote. But there's more. And the book itself is three-dimensional. It's not just a page. It's a thing. And that feels kind of cool as a human being to get a little more of yourself.

back when you have that 3D piece of view you can hold. As hard as COVID was to govern through, when you do what I did, and that was a press conference every single day for a year and a half. Yes, my God, the stamina. You read the death list every day for a year and a half because you don't want anybody else to have to. You have to break every rule they tell you in politics. Up to that point, you were never supposed to say, I don't know.

Or I made a mistake. And guess what? At that time with what we were dealing with, there wasn't any other answer to a lot of it than we didn't know at the time. But it made me be so real, so raw and direct with the people of Kentucky. That's why they now call me Andy. I mean, most people don't call me governor when they see me out. I know. It's really cool. They call me Andy.

it just, I got to, but I also had to. And a scary time, share myself on a very personal level. Yeah. Talk to people about we were going through it too and what it felt like. Yeah. And that connection, I felt the same way in the book. And being able to just show a little bit more. And in the end, it's worth.

it. I think it's both self-affirming, but I think people respect you being willing to put yourself out just a little bit more to show who you are. I think people forget, you know, there is a pressure for leaders, especially to always be even, you know, to know everything, to have a plan. And I actually think that does a disservice to the rest of us because then you panic if you don't know something. And I think what you did during that time as hard as I know it was, was you reminded everybody without having to say it that it's okay to learn in public, that your job has to be to do the best you can with the information you've got. And if next week you get some more information and the best you can then changes to be even better, that's actually the whole goal.

And I think we need more of that reality and humility from leadership right now. So thank you for choosing to model it for us with the book. And also, frankly, in the way that, you know, you show up to have a conversation with me or you show up to have a conversation in a press conference with your constituents. It really, it means a lot. What I always say to people when they say thanks for what you do, you just said it. I always say I'm doing my best. That's it.

Which is what you just said to me. That's it. Well, I'm curious. I'm curious, Andy. I was about to call you governor. I'm like, I'm going to stop doing that. Go right ahead. Andy is still my name.

I know it. I know it. You know, you've got a lot happening right now, and the book is coming out, and we're in for a hell of a continued fight with the federal administration. And, you know, you are raising two teenagers, and you have a marriage you take care of

and the folks in your state that you've done such good work for. Congratulations on the battery plants as well. I loved that. I'm curious, though, when you look at the end of the year and you think about your goals for 2027, whether they're personal or professional, what feels like your biggest work in progress right now? So I'm still governor through December 14th,

We're one of those odd years. I always feel that as a person, I'm a work in progress, but I certainly think this country right now is a work in progress. And we've lost a lot of the progress that we'd made. We see a president that I believe is operating in an openly racist fashion. We see a president that's making it harder for us to get by. So as I think of a work in progress, it's how do we continue to make sure that people see what's happening, to make sure that we can do the best we can to stop those harms from happening. The work in progress in many ways right now is helping families get through this week or this month.

But it's got to be done in a way that helps next year be easier and the year after that to be easier. I will say in looking at the book, A Faith Journey is always a work in progress. And one of my ministers said that you can't have bumper sticker faith. That if you feel like you've checked all the boxes, then you're not working hard enough at it. If you don't always feel that there's something more to do, then you're not taking it as seriously as you should. I've been pretty busy. I need to actually get back to church in person a little bit more. That's a work in progress.

And as a deacon, they probably agree. but but I'm just trying to make sure that we have a future in the United States of America where my kids and their generation can be proud of the country they're growing up in. Yeah, gosh, well, we leave to our kids. That's the biggest work in progress of all. Amen. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Congratulations, friends.

If you have somehow not ordered a copy of Governor Beshear's new book, go and do likewise how we heal a broken country. Today's the day, now's the moment. It is a gorgeous dose of hope that I think we all need. And it's really an inspiring story about how to reach out and check on your neighbor. And yeah, go out and do likewise. I think we need that right now. Thank you.

Thank you. This is an IHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.