Pod Save America - 2020: Steve Bullock on winning back Trump voters and making dad jokes

Episode Date: June 27, 2019

Jon talks to Montana Governor and Democratic presidential candidate Steve Bullock about getting dark money out of politics, making college and health care more affordable, and why he loves a “good�� dad joke. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau with another installment of our 2020 Candidate Series. This time we're talking to Montana Governor Steve Bullock. He's someone you won't be seeing on the debate stage this week because he didn't qualify in time for the first debate. But he's about one month into his campaign and we wanted to give him a chance to talk about his ideas, his policies, his views on politics. So we had him by the office last week in Los Angeles. We talked about what a Democrat from Montana, which is a state that Trump won in 2016, can bring to the race. We talked about getting dark money out of politics, his ideas around

making college and healthcare more affordable, foreign policy, and why politics, as usual, won't fix climate change. Here's the conversation. Governor Bullock, welcome to Pod Save America. It's good to have you here. John, it's great to be here for sure. I'll start with a simple question. In 2020, you'll have served two terms for Governor Montana. You could go into the private sector, you could retire, you could possibly be the next senator for Montana. Why do you want to be president of the United States right now? Yeah, and I want to be president of the United States because I think this is a dangerous time in this 243-year experiment called representative democracy.

I mean, I have young kids. I see us more divided as a nation than ever before, certainly not in my lifetime. And I ended up running for governor. I was attorney general for that, a job I loved, but ran for governor because it really was, what am I handing off to my kids? And I think it's even that much more important today. What got you into politics in the first place? What made you run for AG? Well, it's sort of a twisted. So I actually went to college down here. Small college.

Claremont McKenna. Yeah. Went sight unseen. The idea of family visits or college visits was beyond my family's financial means. Worked my way through college. I borrowed my way through law school at Columbia and had this idea that I was going to stay in New York, pay off what would be $175,000 in loans today, and then maybe move home. But my father and my parents divorced in grade school, got stage four lung cancer. So I decided if I was ever going to get everything right from that, time to move home. The only place that I could work in Montana with a debt load that big was in public service because then Columbia would help pay my loan.

So I started a cubicle in the attorney general's office. The only way that I got an actual office was my voice was so loud. Everybody was saying, we've got to get him out of there. And I'll never forget. So I was in federal court on a case. James Watt had this group that was suing to get rid of our stream access laws. And we have some of the best stream access laws in the country. And I'm like, two years out of law school. My name is Steve Bullock. I represent the people of Montana. These streams and rivers belong to all of us no matter how wealthy we are. I'm like, this attorney general stuff is the coolest job in the world.

So I ran for it. And I'm not sure my whole family even voted for me. I got killed. What year was this? This would have been in 2000. Okay. So that was the first time you ran? Yeah.

And decided, oh, I will never want to do that again. Went on to practice both some in private practice as union-side labor lawyer for a little while. Did a minimum wage campaign. As we got closer to the 2008 election, I was like, but I really loved doing that when I worked in the Attorney General's office. So I decided to run for it. It wasn't a favorite. I was in a three-way primary and somehow it worked out. So you've talked about how you're the only candidate in the race who's won a Trump state. But right now, like the top five polling Democrats, all of whom won in pretty blue areas, are still they have about 70 percent of the vote between all of them. Sure. So how do you make the case to primary voters that, you know, a candidate who has won in a Trump state has experience that's more valuable and even necessary than the top five or

six candidates now. No, you bet. And only got into this about a month ago. My legislature was still going on, so I had a lot to do. In some ways, we look at it like, and I get the excitement and the need to get on to going against Trump. But four years ago, I think Ben Carson was polling number one. So I think that there's some time along the way. ago, I think Ben Carson was polling number one. So I think that there's some time along the way. Yeah. No, I think I make the case that, as you note, was the only one to win a reelect in a statewide race with Trump on the ballot. He took Montana by 20. I won by four. Twenty five, 30 percent of my voters voted for Donald Trump. If we can't bring back both some of the places that we lost

in 16, in addition, turn out our base, this guy could well win. But more than that, too, that like there is a hunger to get things done that impact real people's lives. And being a governor and a governor of a state that's best, my legislature has been about 60 percent Republican, we've been able to get progressive things done from health care to kicking dark money out of our elections to high risk medical pools to investments in education. And I've done more on dark money than anybody else. So I think how you break through at the end of the day when people look at all of this is that we've got to beat Donald Trump, but we also have to make sure the government can work. And so many of the issues that we'll be hearing about through this primary, to me, it's been more than speeches. It's been actual having to get things done on the ground that impacts people's lives. So what are we missing about these Montana Republicans you're working for, you're working with in the state legislature that's so different than the Republicans that we all know in D.C.? What's the secret there to get stuff done? Yeah, certainly I think D.C. could learn a lot from Montana. I'm not going to say that it would be easy.

Because I also have more vetoes than any governor in the history. Right, right. Did I think the way that I've had some success is there in governing a twofold? One of which is, sure, I try to find common ground. I work with individuals. But I also will then go to their districts and try to say, you know, most people's lives, I hate to tell you this, are even too busy with real life to listen to Pod Save America. Believe me, we know. We're trying to reach all those people.

Yeah, and most people don't live for politics, but they want a safe community, a decent job, a roof over their head, good public schools, clean air and clean water, the belief you can do better for your kids and grandkids and yourself. So I think how I've been able to have success is certainly showing up, listening, trying to engage folks along the way, going to their districts. And what do you say when you show up? Because I feel like it is a great argument for Democrats that we've got to compete everywhere if we're going to win everywhere. I think everyone, you know, pundits and everyone else I was looking for, what's the secret message that really breaks through to these voters? Well, and two different things. I'll give you an example of how I've showed up when it comes to trying to govern. And then also to yours, what do we say to these voters along the way

2015 is when i was trying to get medicaid expansion through right like this was the heart of anti-obamacare time yeah and i'll never forget i go to this town called shoto it's population 1700 on the rocky mountain front literally everyone in town knew why i was coming because the coke brothers were nice enough to send a picture of me and Barack Obama saying, Bullock and Obama are coming to destroy your healthcare system. Very subtle message. Yeah. I showed up and everybody in town got that flyer. So I showed up and instead of just telling them what they need, I listened. First person that spoke was hospital administrator. So 43%

of the people that walk through those doors don't have health insurance. A couple of speakers down, and, yeah, some people yelled and said, oh, Bullock and Obama are horrible. But it was the chair of the county commission. And the chair of the county commission wasn't even showed out. He was from Bynum. It's a suburb, population 50. He's a rancher. You know, he goes, I was born in this suburb.

A suburb or 50. That's funny., he goes, I was born in this suburb. A suburb or 50, that's funny. And he said, I was born in this hospital. This hospital saved my life a couple years ago when I had a heart attack. If we lose this hospital, we've lost this town. And I think them telling me what they needed more than me telling them that I had all the answers, that's what gave that Republican legislator the courage to defy the Koch brothers, the answers. That's what gave that Republican legislator the courage to defy the Koch brothers,

defy party leadership, when really what, you know, every single vote mattered. And as a result, we haven't lost rural hospital. Now, when we go to places, too, that, you know, we got to recognize, right, that when I was growing up in the early 70s, 90% of 30-year-olds doing better than their parents were at age 30. Today, it's only half. Or that in real terms, in the last 40 years, people haven't had a pay increase. So part of it is saying, you know, this isn't working out too well. This economy is not working out too well. And it's Democrats that have traditionally fought for your economic interests, your health care interests, your education interests. And they look to D.C. and it's Democrats that have traditionally fought for your economic interests, your health care interests, your education interests. And they look to D.C. and it's not working either. So a broken economy and a broken political system, if we're not showing up and telling them, here's how we will work in partnership to make your life better, I think we're missing something. So there's a study last month out of the University of Iowa that said

most of the voters in that state that switched from Republican to Democrat in 2016, I'm sorry, Democrat to Republican in 2016, who voted for Donald Trump, did not do so because of economic distress, but because of nativist appeals from Donald Trump and that your proclivity to change from Democrat to Republican in 2016 was much more likely if you responded to the nativist appeals. And there's been a whole bunch of studies like this, right? Because look, I'm someone who thought, worked for Barack Obama, and I think, oh, it's always economics. Democrats need an economic message that's more populist, and then we can break through. And then you see all these studies, and you're like, I don't know. What do you think about that? Do you buy those studies? Well, I do in as much as, yeah, a third of the counties went

Obama, Obama, Trump in Iowa. Or you go to where Dubuque is. It hadn't voted Republican since Eisenhower, and then somehow that we lost it. I think the feeling that the economy and the political system aren't really working for you in part leads to the same nativist that the University of Iowa study provided, right? That I think that he in part was the result, not the cause of folks saying things aren't working. Instead of doing what President Obama did is saying we can actually bring people up. Yeah. He poured gasoline on that fire. What does a Trump bullet voter sound like?

Because they were like, what, tens of thousands of them, right, in Montana? Yeah. Come to Montana sometime and I'll show you, John. Look, I think that many of them certainly, they don't agree with all my policy positions or everything that I stand for, but they thought that at the end of the day, I was going to put them above the politics. And I'd be fighting for their education interests, their healthcare interests. And I do show up. I don't just go to the pockets of blue. Now, one of my favorite examples was from your old boss. I'm not naive enough to say that you can just go door to door across America, right? He wanted to. But I'll never forget. So when he was running in the primary in 2008. I remember I was there with him, yeah.

Were you there in Butte? Yes, I was. Because that to me, so for if not everyone's followed all the saga of Montana politics, we have a June primary. So I was in that three-way race for AG. And I got to the point where the Obamas and the Clintons were there so much, I just worked the lines, and I'm like, I don't need to hear that again. So he wraps up the nomination and come Fourth of July. Could have been anywhere in this country.

Could have been in Martha's Vineyard raising money. Could have been with his family somewhere. He took his family to Butte, America. I think it was Malia's birthday, too. It was, actually. It was, actually. It was. And Butte is a town that at one time around the turn of the century, these wealthy copper barons basically controlled all of Montana through this largest Hoven Pit copper mine. And now it's the largest superfund site. Now, on the one hand, there was zero

electoral advantage for him to come to Butte. but it spoke to places like Butte all over this country that this guy gives a damn about me. What is the first piece of legislation you'd want to pass as president? I would do, and I did this executive order in the state of Montana, is said that if you want to contract for services with the state, not even if you get it, I can't tell you not to spend in our system, but you have to disclose every single dollar that you spend trying to influence our elections. So that way, if nothing else in this post-Citizens United world, you're going to add transparency along the way. And think the federal government contracts with dang near every company in the world.

Yeah. Certainly in the United States. So at least we'd add the sunshine and transparency. Like for so many of the issues that we're talking about and will be talked about through this primary and into the general election, until we address what's happened since Citizens United, until we address the fact now a billion dollars of undisclosed spending has even occurred since then, it's going to be that much harder to address anything else. Would you consider passing H.R. 1 as your first piece of legislation? I know Elizabeth Warren said she's wanted to do that. What do you think? Yeah, I would do the executive order and a couple other executive actions along the way. I'd try to blow up the filibuster. When it came to legislation, both on some campaign finance or disclosure stuff, I think that we need to do some overall tax reform. And I think we've got to start addressing climate.

do some overall tax reform. And I think we got to start addressing climate. On the money and politics thing, Elizabeth Warren has sworn off sort of high dollar fundraisers as one way to reduce the influence of money, at least on her campaign. Would you consider something like that? What do you think about that? Well, I didn't start with like $10 million that I transferred over. You didn't have a big account that you – Either. So no, like no corporate PACs, no super PACs. Are you taking money from lobbyists? I am taking money from anyone as long as it's disclosed. Disclosed.

It's disclosed. Fully disclosed, yeah. So you recently expanded Medicaid in Montana to about 100,000 people? We got it reauthorized interestingly after. So it started in 2015. Right. We were trying to reauthorize it by a ballot initiative. Tobacco companies spent $26 million killing it by the initiative.

So stripping healthcare away from 100,000 folks. Tobacco companies. Yeah. Unbelievable. But we did then. I got it reauthorized through my legislative session. So I imagine if you become president, you know, you'll do everything you can, you know, with your executive power to sort of shore up the Affordable Care Act.

What do you then do for the other 30 million people who still don't have health insurance right now? And in addition to that, all the people who, you know, even people who have Obamacare have said, you know, bought insurance on the exchanges have said, my deductibles are too high. I can't find a plan that I can really afford. So what do you do to cover the rest of the country and bring costs down? Yeah. And first of all, let's recognize that, you know, 70% of America is covered by employer-sponsored health insurance. And by and large, they're happy with it.

They're not always happy with the cost of the coverage. So we have to get to the point of both access and affordability for everyone. With access, I would do a public option. If you look at there's 25, 30 million people that aren't covered. So you could buy in, certainly. covered. So you could buy in, certainly. You could also, if you could auto-enroll Medicaid expansion, and we could get the rest of the states in the country to pass it, well, that'd be about 14 of the 10 million that have zero coverage. So automatic enrollment for everyone who qualifies for Medicaid that's not currently. For Medicaid eligible. And the idea that drug companies invest how much in our political system

and we can't negotiate prescription drug costs, we pay more for drugs and health care than any country in the world. And then I think you do have to, and you brought up this, the next piece of this is turning around and saying, out of network charges, surprise medical billing. How do we address that? How do we bring down overall costs? I mean, even with that legislature in Montana, we passed a reinsurance program, essentially a high risk pool. For folks on the exchange, that should drop what they're paying, eight or 9%. Yeah. Have you heard of this program, Medicare for

America, this legislation that's been offered, and it would basically allow everyone to enroll automatically in Medicare, and it would allow employers to choose that? I mean, how do you, because I know there's a different, like, how do you see the public option? How much would you have to pay in? Could you just enroll in a public option? How do you see that? The way I look at it would be something to compete against. So an individual that doesn't otherwise have insurance, you could go to the private market or you could turn around and buy into a public option Medicare for all. You were just speaking about how you had a lot of student loans when you're coming out of law school.

What do you think we should do about this enormous burden that student debt is facing so many people in this country? Yeah, when you look at student debt doubling in the last decade, and I noted I had $175,000 in today's terms that I had to pay off. I mean, first, what I've done and then what I think that you could do. I've frozen college tuition six of the last eight years in Montana, and that's not by starving our universities. That's by investing more money at the state level into the system. If you look from the recession until today, 46 states have decreased their state investment in higher ed by almost 20%.

Montana is one of four that's increased, so we have the fourth lowest tuition and fees in the country. Student debt load ends up well over 10 grand less than the average for our country. So we have to make meaningful contributions at our level. Now, when you look at the literally, what, 100 and what's the overall student debt burden right out there? Billions. I think that there are things that you can do without going down the absolute free college for all. Well, the free college is on the front end, but would you, like, you know, Warren's got this proposal to wipe out the debt for something like 96% of Americans, pays for it with, you know, a wealth tax. What do you think about that?

I think that there are things that you can do without wiping out the debt for everyone. And why don't you want to wipe out the debt? Well, two things. One of which is that, like, yeah, in an ideal world, no one would have student debt. Right. debt. But as long as, A, we could figure out how to pay for it. And let's also recognize that 68% of America doesn't have a college degree. So how do you make it more affordable along the way? Now, 60 years ago in this country, we said, wouldn't it be great if employers sponsored and carried health insurance? So what did we do? We actually incentivized saying, employer,

you can write off the cost of health coverage. An employee, you don't have to pay taxes off of this. Think about what we do for student loans. Now, if an employer turns around and says, John, I'm going to cover your student loans. I don't think it's business expensed. And then you as the employee have to pay taxes on it like this is a benefit. So we need to actually make it so first employers can cover part of it. If you look at it, we have 80 to 90 percent of all of the student loans out there are controlled by owned by the federal government. You could lower the points along the way. You could not dismantle the public service and loan repayment programs. I think there are a number of steps that you could do without just saying, all right, we're going to wipe all this

away. Is there a solution on the federal level to sort of slow the rising cost of tuition? Because as you say, like as a governor, you can invest more in state education and freeze tuition like you did. But what, I keep wondering what we do on the federal level, because otherwise it feels like we're just subsidizing loans in college and that costs a lot too. Yeah. And you look at it, I mean, where the federal government's always been most effective, at least in the past with, when it comes to education, education funding is using its purse as sort of either the carrot or the stick, right? The Obama administration did more for publicly funded preschool by putting out opportunities for states to invest along the way. Well, you look at what we've seen the last two and a half years when it comes to tuition issues that what this

administration's doing is essentially dismantling any consumer finance protection side of this and the fly-by-nights will get more and more money along the way. I'm not sure that other than using the power of your purse, you're going to be able to limit every public university from increasing costs on tuition, but we also got to recognize that it's got to be a partnership. Like, I think that you could turn around and, and I think we should, a high school degree is no longer enough. Um, recognizing that what you could do is you could cover two year college last dollars in at the federal level. And at least for the tuition fees part, not the living expenses, it'd be relatively affordable.

On immigration, what does enforcement look like in a Bullock administration? Who gets deported? Who gets detained? Who gets to stay? Yeah. And first, like, let's recognize that this president has taken humanitarian issues and made it to try to divide people all the way across. all the way across. There are some systemic things like you have a broken bureaucracy when you have 400 judges in a caseload of almost 800,000, right? But you turn around and say that as far as who gets to stay, the idea that individuals here and elsewhere have known no other country but ours and are now at risk of deportation. Yeah. The Dreamers. Immediately we've got to figure out a way to take care of them.

It's 3 million. Another 8 million folks, undocumented, immigrants. Two-thirds of them have lived in this country for over a decade. Yeah. them have lived in this country for over a decade. And just even what we would get, you know, when you talk about here's how do we pay for things, just what we'd get for tax from actually getting them in a path to citizenship could be a meaningful, meaningful way along the way. Now, I don't, what was the rest? Who gets detained? Yeah, I mean, I guess what I think is, you know, looking back at the Obama administration, we obviously wanted comprehensive immigration reform. We pushed for it very hard.

We couldn't get it done. In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, we had a Department of Homeland Security and specifically ICE within Homeland Security that sort of ran wild on its own, at least in the first term, and, you know, rounded up, deported a whole lot of people that probably shouldn't have been deported in this country who weren't dangerous criminals. By the end of the administration, we had the priorities changed a little bit. But, you know, I think there's been some interesting proposals in the field so far. Julian Castro said he would change it so that crossing the border legally would be a civil infraction

and not a criminal penalty anymore. Beto has talked about about from an executive standpoint, he would only deport the most dangerous criminals. Where do you come down on sort of what you do? And what O'Rourke says, right, is that now you really do have sitting outside at the end of a plant gate shift as opposed to finding the most dangerous criminals. Right. I mean, this makes zero, zero sense. Yeah. I would still keep it a criminal infraction across the border. Right. And I think that it is, and you know, some folks say, all right, we got to get rid of ICE. Now you've, as you know, you and the administration struggled with this for eight years, got the priorities, presumably by end where you thought it was.

I don't think it's about getting rid of ICE. I think it's about doing the reform to make sure that enforcement priorities are the bad criminals, not the individual that's just hanging out with their family trying to make a better life. Yeah. So a grown number of Democratic presidential candidates, as well as Nancy Pelosi, about 60 House Democrats now, now support the creation of a commission that would develop reparation proposals and issue a formal apology to African Americans in this country for slavery. Do you support that? You know, I support the concept of saying that there have been

historical injustices that continue until today, and they're having meaningful impacts in our communities. I mean, by definition, right, reparations is remedying past wrong by giving, providing assistance to those who've been wronged. And certainly the promise of this country for a lot of folks isn't, it hasn't ever been realized and it's been a different path than you or I ever had. So where I take that is, well, if we know that an African-American family makes 58% of what a white family makes, part of that's historical, and that goes all the way to today. If you look at, in a separate context, like in my state, the lifespan of a Native American is 20 years less than someone else. Well, we've got to address what's held us back along the way. And I think that is where

I'd go or say that there are systemic inequities today that it didn't just start today. But that's probably different than a payment for every individual or so. How would you address some of the systemic inequities? You know, as you mentioned, there's both a very large and growing wealth gap between white Americans and other Americans, and also, you know, infant mortality. It goes through all kinds of economic issues. Housing. There's also, of course, inequities in our justice system. How do you start approaching some of those inequities? Yeah, and it really is looking at each of the inequities

and saying what resources can we bring to bear. Even in a state like mine, we got eight or nine bills through when it looked at sort of criminal justice reform. If you look at health disparities, reform. If you look at health disparities, an African-American woman is four times more likely to die in childbirth. Or as far as maternal care prior to having a child, Hispanic families, substantially different access to care. Now, part of that's things like Medicaid. Part of that's availability along the way. But I think for each of the issues, each of the sort of where there's systemic differences, we have to take them one by one and say, how do we meaningfully address

either a community that's been wronged? I want to talk about climate change. So I know you've talked about rejoining the Paris Accords. I think aside from Paris, probably the most consequential step Obama took to reduce carbon pollution was his clean power plan. Obviously, power plants are the number one source of carbon pollution in the United States. When we first announced that plan, you said you were very disappointed in it. Why? So it was two different steps, right? So step number one came out and said, here's the Montana's mass reductions we need to do. We actually went around the entire state and said, we can actually do this. Let's figure out how to. So we went to coal communities and others. So we went to coal communities and others. And then when you rolled out the final rule, it actually doubled the mass, the reductions expected out of Montana. So after working with EPA and others, said, look, you moved the goalposts on us along the way. I mean, I guess the question is, there's so many issues where you can say, all right, well, this is as best as we can do.

And we're compromising and compromise is important. It's the only way to get things done. Climate is this issue where it's like, OK, we're given a deadline. We got to do something. Yep, absolutely. So it's almost like the usual politics of compromise and let's do a bit here and a bit there seem like they don't quite fit with the magnitude of the moment. We cannot do that anymore. And I look at, yeah, I had 1.3 million acres burned two years ago. What do you think we should do? Fire seasons are 78 days longer now than it was 30 years ago. So I do think that you turn around and say, right, IPCC says we've got to be at net

zero by 2050. I think we can do it a lot sooner, 2040 or earlier. Certainly, yeah, some of the easy steps is not only rejoining Paris, but also funding our commitments along the way. Not even the auto industry was asking for repeal of the fuel efficiency standards. Right. You know, they were along the path. Looking at probably the most antiquated piece of machinery that we have in this country is the electrical grid. Yeah. Because it's really been cobbled together.

So investments along the way into that to make more both wind and solar available. Investing in technology as we get battery storage along the way. Energy conservation. I mean, that's about 30% of what you could change just by hiring people to make things better, more efficient along the way. So I think that we need to take... Do you think we need a price on carbon? I think that that should certainly be on the table. I think that could be part of it. Think about, though, and it's funny as you say, like, well, not funny. It's tragic. You know, think back to the first George Bush.

Yeah. So he said as president, we've got to address the greenhouse effect with the White House effect. Yeah. I mean, as a Republican president, I am going to lead from the White House. Now, a Republican can't even acknowledge climate change as human cause because of what outside spending has done. So I think that this is a crisis that we have to address. And we have to take it seriously, not only our role, but our role in an international leadership perspective, because we can't do it alone. It makes no sense that, yes, China is emitting twice as much as we are when it comes to greenhouse gas.

But they're also investing a lot more into even the science and technology and opportunities for what a net zero economy can look like. Your old secretary, Tom Vilsack, he said, I can get the whole dairy industry to net zero, but they can't do it alone. There has to be federal investment along the way. I know you've only been in the race for a month. Are you going to come up with a big climate plan that's all detailed? Or what's your thoughts on that? We will.

Yeah. We will. Do you think Donald Trump deserves to be impeached? What do you think? I mean, anyone who casually listens to this pod, that's what I think. Yeah, look, I think it's a moving target. I heard you talking about it. That's what I think.

Yeah, look, I think it's a moving target. I mean, from the perspective of what he is normalizing and what this administration is normalizing is absolutely – it's dangerous for the institutions that we have. And we shouldn't just take this sitting down. Yeah. Where I say it's a moving target, and I know that you don't think, well, these investigations may not be the way. Now, there is a constitutional obligation of oversight from Congress. And I'll be darned if the executive branch doesn't have a constitutional obligation to respond to that. Right. So that's where, from my perspective, if it continues to stonewall on every investigation,

then I think we have to look at it. So that's why I say it's a moving target. It's also interesting, though, because you say, you know, you don't want this election to be a referendum on Donald Trump. Yeah. Now I'm interviewing you. Do you think this election should be a referendum on Donald Trump? I mean, look, I actually think that in this election we do have to offer people a choice. Right. Like I think it's insufficient to just bash Trump from now until Election Day. But I also think because we are in a media environment where that man can grab the microphone and command so much attention that it's always going to be about Trump. 2018, yeah, our candidates talked about health care all the time. All the ads are about health care. But opposition to Donald Trump drove that vote, right? I mean, that's what people wanted,

a check on Donald Trump in 2018. Health care was part of that, right? Because they were about to lose their health care. He's trying to strip it away. But I think it's just it's it's always it to some extent, especially when there's an incumbent running for reelection. This is the case when we ran against George W. Bush. This was the case when Mitt Romney ran against Obama. He tried to make it a referendum on Obama. It's always it's the it's gravitates towards a referendum on the president. So I just think I mean, I guess I guess though my question was, you know. Oh, I don't get to ask you questions. No, you can ask me. I think there's an honest debate to be had whether the House should move forward and actually go do this. But I'm wondering if you having, have you read the Mueller report?

Read most of it. Skimmed it. Do you think reading that and knowing what you know publicly that he deserves impeachment, whether they go down that path or not, whether it's wise to go down that path or not? I think reading the first half and I mean, we should have a real acknowledgement that, right, a foreign government interfered and invaded our country. to allow the normalization of him standing next to Putin and say, I take him at his word, is pretty damn problematic for looking backward. It's problematic. It's also what we look at going forward. Now, you look at here are the number of issues that were brought out in the second half of it.

And whether that would be cause for impeachment, I think that's anybody's bet or it's anybody's discussion to have. But if you can't even, if Congress can't fulfill its oversight duty along the way of saying, all right, I want to unpack some of these suitcases that was brought up in this Mueller report and other things, then I think that's where you would get to the point where you have to impeach. Now, I would turn around and say, and then also last, the week four last, seven meet and greets or town halls throughout Iowa. No one's asking about it. People talked about their health care. Right. They talked about what these tariffs are doing they this isn't what their discussion was right and i think that there is the potential for turning around and by moving for impeachment as the senate locks up like

hopefully what would happen right is additional information comes out that gets any sane person to say for the sake of our representative democracy, we've got to do something about it. Right. But I would so much rather have the next year and a half talking about the fact that the guy who will clean up the studio tonight paid more in taxes than 60 Fortune 500 companies last year. Or we're now 50 years the lowest corporate tax collection ever in the last 50 years. What trillion dollars of stock buybacks didn't go to me? What do you want to do about taxes? Would you repeal all of the Trump tax cuts?

I would do, look, even the corporations weren't asking for 21%, right? And then add on to that where, you know, when you have 60 companies that not only didn't pay taxes, that they got credits, I think you could look at a 28% and still be competitive and close loopholes and turn around, especially on the first top four brackets, take it up another three points. You'd make some good money. And I think at some point, you know, somebody that, again, that cleans this place when they're getting taxed a higher rate than somebody living off their trust fund. When you look at the passive income, we've got to – it should be taxes, ordinary income. So the Trump administration is now arguing, or at least it's reported that they're arguing behind closed doors,

that the 2001 authorization for use of military force that Congress passed after 9-11 for Afghanistan gives them the authority to go to war in Iran, potentially. Do you agree that the AUMF gives them the authority to go to war in Iran? You know, so to tell you the truth, John, I haven't read the AUMF lately. The idea that they're going to turn around and say, now we have the authority to go to war in Iran. Do you think it should be repealed? The House Democrats voted today to actually repeal the AUMF because they said that we need a new one. To be candid, I should look into it more.

But even look at like, right, America first has become America alone. Yeah. And this Trump reflex seems to be we're going to treat our allies as adversaries and our adversaries as allies. If you look, what's happening with Iran is of his own making. Yeah. Yeah.

You've said we need to campaign and legislate like our kids are watching. What do you mean by that? And I've shared this story. So when I got elected, said we need to campaign and legislate like our kids are watching what do you mean by that i and i've shared the story so when i got elected uh my kids were six eight and ten it had been 40 years since kids that age have been living in the montana governor's residence i'll never forget my son moves in we kicks a soccer ball and somebody goes you know that painting's worth hundreds of thousands of

dollars. I'm like, get rid of the damn painting. It's it, right? Because we have to live here. And first day of the state, I said, you're going to hear different sounds from both the governor's residence and my office. And it'll be the sounds of children's laughter and that our kids learn from our words and our deeds. Yeah. And we as leaders have an obligation to act like our kids are watching because they are. So what does that mean both in how I present myself and in a way that now that I have teenage daughters, I embarrass them no matter what I do. But there's got to be ways to call out honesty, be honest and call out the BS when it's there, but do it in a way that, gender, geography, the temper tantrums. And

it is no exaggeration to say we now expect more out of our preschoolers than we do of our president. And that's causing further and further divisions in this country. I can be in Montana, the legislators I work with, I can fundamentally philosophically disagree with them. But that doesn't mean that I don't have some obligation to show them respect. What's your best bad dad joke? I know you're known for them. They're all good dad jokes, John. That's the trick. It was a trick question. All the dad jokes are actually good. So during my launch, I was asked that as one of the questions.

Maybe what does the mama buffalo say to the baby buffalo when you're dropping off at school? Bye, son. What are the two different sections of a Montana library have you heard this one no fishing and non-fishing fishing and non-fishing that is what a someone who's in the office today who knew you were coming say I have a great dad joke that's Montana fishing and non-fishing please pass this on and so I did well i appreciate that john uh governor bullock thank you so much for joining us really appreciate it and uh good luck on the trail thanks for having me all right john Thank you.