The Ben Shapiro Show - Bill Lee | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 133

00:00:00.000 The left says we're attacking this or attacking that.

00:00:04.000 We took for granted that our kids were being taught fundamental, educational, academic subjects.

00:00:14.000 They're doing something else that hasn't been done before and we probably ought to protect these kids.

00:00:21.000 We're not attacking it, we're just protecting it.

00:00:24.000 This week, nationwide elections across the House, Senate, and governors have our attention as we watch incredible momentum from Republicans.

00:00:31.000 With federalism on the rise in our politics as of late, watching Republicans in the gubernatorial races has been really, really encouraging.

00:00:38.000 In this episode, one of America's best governors, Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee, joins us to discuss his own re-elect race this week, and the many Republicans now in striking distance of Democrat incumbent seats.

00:00:48.000 Before entering politics in 2018, Governor Lee's career was centered on his grandfather's business for over 30 years.

00:00:54.000 For 24 of those years, he was president of the company and took the company's annual revenue from $20 million to $140 million.

00:00:59.000 His success in business has informed his governing policy and, in many respects, Tennessee is the best-run state in America.

00:01:06.000 Many companies, including our own Daily Wire, have resettled here.

00:01:09.000 Tennessee is among the top states where businesses and individuals are moving in the wake of disastrous COVID policies around the country.

00:01:15.000 His search has put the governor in a unique position of leading in a state where growth is off the charts right now.

00:01:19.000 It's highlighted in the bustling, albeit Democrat-led city of Nashville.

00:01:22.000 Originating under progressive leadership, we've recently seen transgender programs here in Vanderbilt Hospital, which were investigated by our own Matt Walsh.

00:01:29.000 In light of that controversy, Governor Lee tells us about how he will be directly involved in protecting children from transgender indoctrination in Tennessee.

00:01:36.000 We'll also discuss many of his plans to come, abortion bans, jobs throughout the state, and the places conservatives can win in the coming years.

00:01:43.000 Hey, hey, and welcome to This is the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special.

00:01:56.000 This show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.

00:01:58.000 Thousands of my listeners have already secured their network data.

00:02:00.000 Join them at expressvpn.com slash Ben.

00:02:02.000 Just a quick reminder, the end of this episode will be exclusively for our Daily Wire Plus members.

00:02:06.000 If you're not a member yet, click the link at the top of this episode's description.

00:02:10.000 Get the full conversation with Governor Bill Lee and every one of our awesome guests.

00:02:13.000 Governor Lee, thanks so much for joining the show.

00:02:14.000 Really appreciate it.

00:02:15.000 Thank you, Ben.

00:02:16.000 Glad to be here.

00:02:16.000 So why don't we start off with just why Tennessee has become such a magnet.

00:02:20.000 So obviously we moved our business, the main part of our business, to Nashville.

00:02:24.000 And it's been an amazing move for everybody who came with us from LA.

00:02:26.000 We've, I think, tripled our business since we've come here, which is a testament to both the leadership of our business, but also to the business climate here.

00:02:32.000 So what makes Tennessee different?

00:02:35.000 Well, we're really glad you came here, by the way.

00:02:38.000 And you said it's been awesome for your business.

00:02:42.000 I think that's the reason that we're seeing companies from all over the country decide to come to Tennessee and people from all over the country.

00:02:51.000 We're one of the most moved to states in America right now.

00:02:54.000 And not by individuals and by companies.

00:02:59.000 I ran a company for 25 years before I worked there 35.

00:03:06.000 1,500 employees, mostly skilled tradespeople, but a business.

00:03:10.000 And when I came into office, you know, it was very important to me that we created a business friendly environment.

00:03:18.000 So regulatory environment, tax environment, and a workforce development strategy, because those are the things that had mattered to me as a business guy.

00:03:28.000 Those are the things that matter to business people who create jobs and opportunity.

00:03:35.000 We're a really business-friendly place.

00:03:37.000 What that means is opportunity for Tennesseans.

00:03:42.000 People have the ability to access work that brings dignity and that brings value and that helps their family.

00:03:52.000 I like to say that Tennessee is a place that values opportunity and security and freedom.

00:03:59.000 And those things are You know, there are things that Americans are looking for.

00:04:05.000 I think Americans right now look around the country and they see things that are worrisome.

00:04:12.000 They want to be reminded that America is the greatest nation in the world.

00:04:15.000 They want to see places that remind them that America hadn't lost her way.

00:04:19.000 And I think when they look at Tennessee, they see that.

00:04:21.000 And a whole lot of them have decided they want to be there.

00:04:25.000 Why do you think that so few politicians in so few areas of the country seem to understand this?

00:04:31.000 I mean, I came, again, from a state that has made it harder and harder and harder to do business.

00:04:36.000 And this is not particularly sophisticated stuff, like make it easy to do business by removing useless regulation or lower the tax rate so that companies can actually reinvest their money in their employees and in growing their base.

00:04:47.000 This sort of stuff isn't super sophisticated, but a lot of politicians just don't get it.

00:04:50.000 What do you think is the block?

00:04:54.000 You know, you said a lot of politicians.

00:04:55.000 I actually think politician's kind of a key word.

00:04:59.000 I guess I am one now that I've been in office, but I don't think of myself as one.

00:05:03.000 I came from the outside, and I've never been in politics, never ran for office, never really been very involved politically.

00:05:14.000 Was a business guy.

00:05:15.000 Was also involved in issues that were very important to me and that I think are very important to people generally because of some work that I had done in non-profits that really stirred my passion that ultimately led to a decision to run.

00:05:31.000 But business people oftentimes are the ones who understand a business friendly environment and oftentimes that's not the politicians that you're talking about.

00:05:40.000 Outsiders understand and You know, people talk to me a little bit about COVID and decisions that we made in the middle of COVID, and one of the things I said was, I'd only been a year or two from running a business, and so I could sit there and think, what would I think as a business owner if the government told me I had to do this or do that or I couldn't do this or couldn't do that?

00:06:05.000 It was very helpful to not be very far removed from running a business where people's lives are depending on it to make decisions.

00:06:13.000 Yeah, one of the things that we were talking about slightly before the show started was your decision to run for office in the first place.

00:06:18.000 You know, having been in the business world and how you're talking about how that wasn't an easy decision.

00:06:22.000 There are a lot of people who grow up with this idea, I'm going to be a senator, I'm going to be president, I want to be in politics, in elected office, and who never actually hold a job.

00:06:30.000 The Biden administration famously has very few people who have ever actually run a business in the administration.

00:06:36.000 I think there may be a difference in kind between people who actually go into the so-called real world before they go into politics and people who are sort of the professional political class.

00:06:45.000 I think it is very helpful, certainly.

00:06:49.000 If you've run a business, you know about how to manage a budget.

00:06:52.000 That's a big deal.

00:06:54.000 For a governor, one of the most important things I should do is manage the budget, because you remember that you're managing other people's money.

00:07:02.000 It's not government's money.

00:07:03.000 It's not the state's money.

00:07:05.000 It's the taxpayers' money that they have paid into the state, and then we turn around and spend it on their behalf.

00:07:13.000 But remembering that, you know, if you're in business and you You don't manage your budget, you go broke.

00:07:20.000 It's pretty simple.

00:07:21.000 If you're in government and you don't manage your budget, the people pay.

00:07:25.000 They have to be taxed to make up for the difference, because the government's not going to go broke.

00:07:31.000 So remembering that, it's really important.

00:07:34.000 But it was a hard decision for me.

00:07:40.000 Frankly, I was at a spot in my life, I had a tragedy in my life that God used a very powerful way to Caused me to think about things that mattered, things that don't matter.

00:07:52.000 I got very involved with my kids in non-profit work.

00:07:58.000 Worked first out of the country, you know, serving the poor.

00:08:01.000 And then got involved in the inner city here, in our city here.

00:08:06.000 Got involved in a re-entry program.

00:08:09.000 Got involved in non-profit efforts.

00:08:12.000 Besides running my business, which was a very purposeful, meaningful job.

00:08:17.000 Non-profits that touched government in some ways, but most importantly touched people's lives.

00:08:24.000 That intersection of people's lives and government and the influence it had in my experience in the private sector caused me to say, you know what, this might be worth doing.

00:08:33.000 This is a valuable way to impact the lives of people and that's how I ultimately decided to run.

00:08:40.000 I mean, being a politician is a very hard life for a couple of reasons.

00:08:43.000 I mean, one is sort of the practical reason.

00:08:44.000 I know a lot of people who are in politics professionally.

00:08:47.000 It means a lot of travel.

00:08:47.000 It means a lot of time on the road.

00:08:48.000 It means a lot of conversations with people you might not necessarily like, both politically and in the donor class.

00:08:53.000 I mean, it means doing a lot of stuff that normal people wouldn't necessarily want to do.

00:08:57.000 And then it also means having to compromise, and it means having to actually try to reify broad ideas.

00:09:03.000 The easiest thing that, what I say to politicians all the time is, I have an easy job.

00:09:06.000 I get to say what I think for a living.

00:09:07.000 I don't actually have to implement any of that stuff except inside my own business.

00:09:11.000 For you, you know, you actually have to take these big ideas that you have about the world and principles that you have, and you have to somehow try to get 80% of what you want, and then you get ripped on by people like me for not getting 100% of what you want.

00:09:23.000 So moving from a world where you're not used to that, where it's just running a business, being able to say what you think, involve yourself in principles that you like, to the world of politics, how has that affected you and changed you, do you think?

00:09:32.000 A couple things.

00:09:34.000 You know, when you're in business, you actually do have to compromise.

00:09:36.000 I mean, you run your business the way you want to, but you have customers.

00:09:42.000 And there's a lot of negotiation with contracts and or the way you run your business, the way you treat your customers.

00:09:50.000 You don't just do whatever you want.

00:09:52.000 Well, you can.

00:09:53.000 You'll be bankrupt.

00:09:54.000 That's the difference, but you won't stay in business long.

00:09:57.000 So the principle of compromise and working together with people For the overall benefit, it still exists, but I think that you're right.

00:10:08.000 You have to step back sometimes.

00:10:11.000 You make decisions that people don't understand because you do actually understand the big picture of your own state, for example, and the politics of your state, and you make decisions that you think are going to be ultimately in the best interest of the people.

00:10:29.000 I will say that One of the things I try to do, or try not to do, frankly, is ever ultimately compromise a core principle or a core value for the sake of getting something done.

00:10:44.000 I talk a lot of times about the toxic world we live in, politics and civility, and how it is that we should treat people differently in spite of the differences in the way that we see the world.

00:11:01.000 You don't have to, in order to be civil, you don't have to be moderate.

00:11:06.000 You don't have to compromise in a moderating way.

00:11:09.000 You can be very clear in your principles and your values and what you understand to be truth and never waver from that.

00:11:20.000 And yet be entirely civil and treat people in a way that recognizes that even if they view it entirely different than you do, the dignity of them as a human being is very valuable, and I think those two can exist.

00:11:34.000 We don't see a lot in public life these days, but It's possible.

00:11:39.000 I mean, I think this is one of the areas where, you know, it may be different being not only a politician but a person who's in touch with real people.

00:11:46.000 There's been this online political world which dominates so much of the media conversation, the Twitter world, the blue checks.

00:11:51.000 And then there's what you actually do, which is you have to go out and talk to people and compromise and deal with people on the other side of the aisle.

00:11:58.000 And because, you know, our institutions have now become As you've all been suggest, sort of platforms for becoming famous rather than an actual institution that you're supposed to do a job within.

00:12:10.000 It's led to this tremendous political polarization.

00:12:12.000 You've been able to get amazing things done here in the state of Tennessee without being alienating, without having to be rhetorically insulting, without doing a lot of the things that I think people are looking for from politicians these days.

00:12:24.000 Why do you think that is?

00:12:25.000 Is that just because you're not a very online person?

00:12:27.000 How does that work exactly?

00:12:30.000 I think it's who I am.

00:12:32.000 I've tried to live my life, all of my life, before I ever became into politics, in a way that recognizes the dignity of people.

00:12:41.000 I love people.

00:12:44.000 It's a faith principle.

00:12:46.000 There are scriptural principles that I try to adhere to.

00:12:51.000 It doesn't mean I'm a perfect guy.

00:12:52.000 It doesn't mean I'm not broken and sinful.

00:12:57.000 Mistake-laden person.

00:13:00.000 It just means that I value people and relationships and human dignity.

00:13:07.000 And I can vehemently disagree with you, but I can still treat you with dignity and respect.

00:13:14.000 That's kind of the way I was raised, and I decided I wanted to continue to try to operate that way.

00:13:21.000 It's really hard, and I don't do well at it all the time.

00:13:24.000 I'm not the expert on civility.

00:13:28.000 I just like thinking about it a lot.

00:13:29.000 And I think our world could use a lot more of it.

00:13:32.000 So, you know, one of the areas that became very controversial during your tenure obviously was mentioned earlier, your handling of COVID.

00:13:37.000 Now there's this vast gap that opened in the country between the states that quote-unquote did it right.

00:13:41.000 And according to the media, this would be New York and California that shut down early and stayed shut down, pushed vaccine mandates, pushed mask mandates.

00:13:47.000 shut down the schools and all the rest, and Tennessee, which didn't get enough credit, the kind of credit it should have, for taking the line that you took, which was, we're going to try and keep everything as open as humanly possible.

00:13:57.000 We'll get the vaccinations to the people who need them.

00:14:00.000 But in the end, we're going to have to rely on people's ability to make good choices for themselves.

00:14:04.000 Maybe you can talk about how you formulated that policy.

00:14:07.000 And part of it was the background that I had and the backdrop from being in the private sector earlier, wrestling with, gosh, am I going to shut people's businesses down?

00:14:20.000 Walk in there and say, you have to close, even though you don't think it's in the best interest of you or your people?

00:14:29.000 That was very much on my mind every time we made decisions.

00:14:33.000 Now, at the same time, early on in this thing, when you had no information and people saying hundreds of thousands of people in your state might die if you don't make the right decisions, early on, we all wrestled with, What in the world is coming?

00:14:48.000 Is there a tsunami coming?

00:14:51.000 We have an obligation to protect folks if we can, but pretty soon we figured out, hey, this is a lot of lack of information.

00:15:04.000 We don't know what's happening here, but it looks like the best way to approach this is trust people.

00:15:13.000 I am a person who says, people ought to decide for themselves.

00:15:17.000 And you ought to decide if you don't want to get COVID, then don't go out.

00:15:22.000 But it's not because I'm going to make you stay in.

00:15:28.000 The whole idea that you trust your people, you trust your businesses, you do recognize that lives are at stake here, but so are livelihoods, which equate to lives at the end of the day in many ways, the implications of wrecking livelihoods.

00:15:46.000 It was hard, and there was a lot of pressure, and there was a lot of pushback, and a lot of walking the hall personally and just saying, gosh, are we doing the right thing here?

00:15:58.000 Wrestling through with it, but at the end of the day, I decided we can trust Tennesseans more than we can trust Anybody else, frankly, because they know best.

00:16:09.000 I don't know best.

00:16:10.000 The medical community doesn't know best.

00:16:12.000 They know best for themselves.

00:16:14.000 I have that philosophy about children, about education, about healthcare.

00:16:19.000 People know best for themselves and should be given the freedom to make those decisions.

00:16:25.000 So in a second, I'm going to ask you what it was like trying to coordinate with the federal government on the one hand and then on the local level, because obviously there are pretty significant disagreements with the city of Nashville inside of Tennessee on COVID.

00:16:34.000 I'm going to ask you about that in just one second.

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00:17:48.000 All righty, so let's talk about how you make these decisions, because there's a push very early on from the media, and actually from the White House, that you gotta follow the science.

00:17:58.000 You know, the scientific experts, and they're the decision makers, and this shouldn't be political.

00:18:03.000 And it seemed to me at the time that, pretty quickly, it was clear that it was political, meaning that your job as an elected official is to balance all of the competing interests.

00:18:11.000 And the only interest is not how many people get the infection.

00:18:14.000 There are other competing interests, including Are you going to destroy every business in your state?

00:18:17.000 Should kids go to school?

00:18:19.000 What are the risk factors?

00:18:20.000 What are the rewards?

00:18:20.000 And pretending that these trade-offs don't exist was a very easy way of avoiding responsibility.

00:18:24.000 So, what was coordination with the federal government like?

00:18:27.000 What sort of information were they providing?

00:18:29.000 Were they being meticulous and exact?

00:18:31.000 Was it kind of sloppy?

00:18:31.000 How did that work?

00:18:32.000 Well, it changed.

00:18:33.000 You know, at first it was one administration, then it changed to another.

00:18:39.000 I will say most of the interaction initially with the Trump administration was very much, we're going to give you advice, but you need to do what you want.

00:18:48.000 That really was the message.

00:18:51.000 It was very clear information and they were not They were not shy from giving you their recommendations and their advice to the CDC and everything else, but there was a general understanding that states should decide for themselves what they should do, and I thought that was the right thing to do.

00:19:09.000 I tend to do, say, decision-making at the local level as much as possible is what we ought to do, and there were There were reasons why we allowed local decision-making to take place.

00:19:22.000 For example, masks.

00:19:24.000 I allowed local county mayors to make the decision about mandates for their own communities.

00:19:30.000 We did not do a statewide mask mandate, but I didn't stop them from doing a mandate either.

00:19:35.000 I figured that folks in that community, their elected officials, they can decide what they want to do there.

00:19:42.000 But it was tough, right?

00:19:44.000 Sometimes those People at the local level make decisions that you don't think are in the best interest of the state, and there are times when you have to intervene there, but a lot of dialogue, a lot of understanding, a lot of bringing people together.

00:19:58.000 I am a convener.

00:20:01.000 We work really closely with the Tennessee Hospital Association, for example.

00:20:05.000 Our group of hospitals, every state has them.

00:20:08.000 We had an unusually good relationship there.

00:20:10.000 Worked really hard with, you know, municipal and county mayors with regular phone calls.

00:20:18.000 I think just communicating, letting folks know, and struggling together with them was the best way forward.

00:20:25.000 So one of the big decisions that came up for pretty much all the states when it came to COVID was what exactly to do with the schools.

00:20:29.000 So in California, they shut down the schools.

00:20:32.000 They shut them down incredibly hard.

00:20:33.000 I mean, they shut down the private schools.

00:20:34.000 They shut down everything in California.

00:20:35.000 It's one of the reasons why we moved our company.

00:20:37.000 We moved my family.

00:20:38.000 And they were shutting down like the public parks.

00:20:40.000 They were shutting down turnoffs off of Mulholland Drive and the apparently mistaken impression that people were going to gather en masse in five-foot square spaces and congregate with one another and just spit on each other.

00:20:50.000 But you know, one of the big issues obviously was what happened with education.

00:20:54.000 We were told for a couple of years by the so-called experts that kids were in severe danger even though it was pretty clear statistically this was not so.

00:21:00.000 We were told that kids had to be masked, even though kids are not good at wearing masks.

00:21:03.000 We were told that none of this would have any real effect on how kids were educated, that kids not being able to see human faces for a year and a half would make no difference.

00:21:11.000 And we were told that if they weren't in school, you know, they'd catch up.

00:21:13.000 It would be no big deal.

00:21:14.000 Tennessee kept the schools as open as humanly possible.

00:21:17.000 Why don't you talk about what your school policy was and how you handled that?

00:21:20.000 So we, at first, like everybody, didn't know what was coming.

00:21:25.000 We closed the schools in the spring of 2020, so mid-March, April, May.

00:21:32.000 And then, the more we looked, and the more we understood, and the more we watched, the more we realized that, in fact, You know, statistically, the vast number of children were not getting COVID and those that were, it was not serious for them.

00:21:48.000 Now, there are outliers to that.

00:21:50.000 We all understand that.

00:21:52.000 I spent, you know, I looked at COVID hospitalizations, pediatric in this state.

00:21:58.000 I probably looked at that chart every single day.

00:22:00.000 I wanted to know what was happening there.

00:22:02.000 And if what I was hearing was true or what the statistically was really happening in our state became evident to me that With a little bit of work, we could keep kids safe.

00:22:14.000 Most of the school districts in our state opened for that fall and stayed open from that day forward.

00:22:23.000 We had A couple of big school districts that didn't.

00:22:26.000 Obviously, the statute allows for district authority to make decisions about that.

00:22:33.000 I say obviously.

00:22:34.000 In our state, that's how it operated.

00:22:35.000 So those districts closed.

00:22:38.000 But the vast majority of our schools were open.

00:22:42.000 And we worked really hard to provide all of the equipment and the necessary tools to keep schools safe for kids.

00:22:52.000 Each district had different rules about distancing and that sort of thing, but the further we went, the more we realized, hey, this is probably not going to be a huge health issue for kids.

00:23:02.000 And the alternative of shutting schools down, we knew was going to be a huge health issue.

00:23:06.000 I mean, parents would tell you that, teachers would tell you that.

00:23:11.000 And so we were really glad that we opened schools up.

00:23:16.000 Now, I'll tell you the other thing we did.

00:23:17.000 We knew this learning loss was coming.

00:23:19.000 So I actually called a special session of the General Assembly in January of 2021 to address learning loss so that we didn't have to wait till the end of session, which means we couldn't address it that summer, so we called a special session.

00:23:35.000 We put in place these learning camps and summer schools and tutoring programs for the summer.

00:23:41.000 We had kids all over the state go through that programming in the summer, and our scores have shown, and we're pretty encouraged about the fact that we kind of hit that learning loss thing early.

00:23:52.000 We think we're going to have better outcomes.

00:23:54.000 So in a second I want to ask you about the education system in the state of Tennessee because obviously one of the things we're watching nationally is a parent's revolt against the way that a lot of the public schools are run.

00:24:03.000 I want to ask you about that in a second.

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00:25:22.000 Let's talk about the education system more broadly for a second.

00:25:25.000 So there's been a big battle that's been going on nationally about what to do about public schools.

00:25:30.000 Parents are suddenly waking up to the fact that a lot of school boards were run by activists.

00:25:34.000 They're waking up to the fact that a lot of schools were being created for almost indoctrinated purposes by local school boards and by associations like the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.

00:25:48.000 There's been a lot of focus on ideas that folks don't like, like teaching of history in ways that denigrate the United States and treat it as though it's the fond head of all evil, teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity to children, ascientific theories and silly theories for adults even.

00:26:05.000 but being crammed down on kids.

00:26:07.000 Now, how do you handle questions of education?

00:26:09.000 How do you think education ought to be handled?

00:26:11.000 I was a parent and now I'm a grandparent, so I kind of think of education from a parent's perspective.

00:26:17.000 Married to a teacher, which is a great, it's also a great perspective.

00:26:23.000 You know, I was talking to Glenn Youngkin just last night, and I think his race was the sort of national exposure to the fact that, hey, there's something really at play here that parents ought to be tuned into.

00:26:42.000 like.

00:26:43.000 Maybe they haven't been paying attention in some places that they should be, and it really opened up and shined a light on what's happening across America.

00:26:54.000 I tend to believe that parents are the best deciders for all things about their kids.

00:27:02.000 Unless that parent's making an obvious, harmful decision for that child.

00:27:08.000 But parents are the deciders when it comes to education.

00:27:11.000 Where their kids should go to school, what their kids should be learning, what they should not be learning, what they should be exposed to and not exposed to.

00:27:18.000 Those are all things that a parent should have the ultimate ability to decide and have transparency so they actually know what's being taught in schools.

00:27:29.000 That's starting to happen around America.

00:27:31.000 It's starting to happen in Tennessee.

00:27:33.000 We said that teaching critical race theory, for example, is illegal.

00:27:38.000 Now, we'll have to figure out how to make certain that that happens as the law passes and then the implementation of that.

00:27:44.000 Going forward, but I'm also a person who's, in my education strategy, it's very focused on the parent's ability to make a choice for their kid.

00:27:55.000 I'm a strong believer in school choice.

00:27:58.000 I mentored a kid in the inner city before I ever got involved in politics.

00:28:02.000 I worked in an inner city at-risk youth program, met this kid at a lunch one day, became intrigued by him.

00:28:11.000 His mom was in prison, didn't know his dad, lived in a very difficult situation.

00:28:16.000 I decided to spend one evening a week Every week, with that kid, for five years, I did that.

00:28:25.000 We obviously became very close.

00:28:28.000 I learned an awful lot about a lot of things, but one of them that I learned about was his education.

00:28:34.000 He was failing every subject in his school.

00:28:39.000 I worked with his grandmother, who was his caretaker, to get him moved into a public charter school.

00:28:47.000 His trajectory entirely changed.

00:28:52.000 I found myself realizing that Different kids have different needs, and different schools serve those needs.

00:28:59.000 And a parent is the best decider for that.

00:29:02.000 And we ought to give every kid choices for education if we want to have the best outcomes.

00:29:08.000 That's been my guiding philosophy.

00:29:10.000 Look, public schools are the number one way we educate our kids.

00:29:14.000 We've invested heavily in them here.

00:29:16.000 We have been smart about it.

00:29:18.000 But I also believe that public charters, and we have an education savings account program here, We ought to give parents choices.

00:29:27.000 The fact that there's so many people on the other side of the aisle who don't want to do that seems somewhat shocking.

00:29:32.000 And it's hard not to see it as, I don't like to talk about the motives of people, but it seems hard not to see that as at least tied to the support of the teachers unions in a sort of corrupt political fashion because it's so obvious that Kids should not be locked into schools that are failing.

00:29:48.000 And it's also perfectly obvious that giving those kids more options is what's going to allow them to get out of poverty.

00:29:54.000 If education is the chief ladder by which people are going to move from one rung to another on the economic scale or on the success scale, then keeping them locked into these areas where the schools are bad and then just throwing money at them in the Apparently pervasive belief that just this is a monetary problem.

00:30:08.000 I can tell you, I went to LAUSD.

00:30:09.000 LAUSD is the second biggest school district in America.

00:30:12.000 And they were spending, when I was going to school there, somewhere between $9,000 and $10,000 a year per student.

00:30:17.000 And the results were awful.

00:30:18.000 And they kept upping the amount of money that they were spending per student.

00:30:21.000 And it didn't seem to matter one iota because, again, if you just keep throwing money at the same people to do the same things, they will continue to do the same things, only more of them.

00:30:28.000 So, you know, why do you think there is that opposition?

00:30:30.000 You know, you said you continue to be surprised.

00:30:33.000 I really do, too.

00:30:36.000 It's because, evidently, they're more interested in a system than they are in a student.

00:30:41.000 Because here's the thing.

00:30:42.000 For example, in our state, we have, I think, 106 public charter schools that serve about 42,000 to 43,000 students.

00:30:54.000 Ninety-one percent of those students are minority students in the most challenged economic zip codes in our state.

00:31:04.000 And yet, there is serious pushback To eliminate that choice from those students.

00:31:11.000 That's hard for me to believe that those minority students should be, that that choice should be taken away from them.

00:31:19.000 Particularly when we see the outcomes for those students better statistically as a result of those educational choices.

00:31:25.000 It's a little surprising to me.

00:31:27.000 It ends up reminding me that these decisions or this pushback is really not considering that child.

00:31:36.000 It's something else, I don't know what it is, whatever reason they're pushing back against it, but I got into this thing about school choice because of my experience with a very low-income, disadvantaged kid, and the personal change I saw in his life, and my realization that we got tens of thousands of those kids in this state, The ESA program, the Education Savings Account program we put in place, same motivation behind it.

00:32:06.000 Why should the low-income minority children in our school districts, in our toughest environments, why should they be the only ones that do not have access to a school of their choice. The Education Savings Account gives them that access. That money that is taxpayer dollar follows that kid to the school of their choice. If you really care about a kid and you don't care about the status quo or the way it's

00:32:36.000 always been done or the system, you have to consider that as an option.

00:32:42.000 And look, at the same time, we just put a billion dollars, and for our state, that's a statistically significant increase, a billion dollar increase in our public school system going forward, because they're incredibly important.

00:32:56.000 We need to fund traditional schools as well.

00:32:59.000 Speaking of kids, one of the issues that obviously has come up a lot here at Daily Wire, our own Matt Walsh, has been leading the charge in trying to prevent the attempts to use what I call sex-denying healthcare on children.

00:33:11.000 It's called more frequently, euphemistically, gender-affirming healthcare with children, which ranges from everything from socially affirming, the idea that a boy can be a girl, to hormone, cross-sex hormone treatments, puberty blockers that may have permanent effects for kids, all the way on up to Double mastectomies, phalloplasties, vaginoplasties for minors.

00:33:29.000 Matt uncovered, along with some other reporters, what was going on at Vanderbilt Medical Center where some of this stuff was being done to minors, 16, 17 year old kids.

00:33:39.000 What is your opinion on what the state's involvement should be in preventing this sort of mutilation of kids?

00:33:46.000 I commend Matt for his work and I told him so.

00:33:51.000 Whenever we can expose and make transparent things that are going on that people don't know about, that's a good thing.

00:34:03.000 It's sad, mostly, for me.

00:34:06.000 As a dad, a grandfather, or someone who watches kids navigate their way through The really hard years of 12, 13, 14, 15, I mean, those are really hard years for children of all types, for everybody trying to figure out their way.

00:34:25.000 And it's really sad to me that these life-altering decisions Frankly, by adults who are making that decision on behalf of that child, because the child's not capable of making those life-altering decisions for themselves.

00:34:43.000 We all know that.

00:34:46.000 It's sad.

00:34:46.000 It shouldn't happen.

00:34:47.000 It's wrong on every level.

00:34:48.000 I think you'll see it clearly addressed legislatively in this state.

00:34:55.000 We will address it here, but we think that it'll probably be addressed across the country in a greater way.

00:35:01.000 I think most I certainly know most Tennesseans, I think most Americans, realize that this shouldn't be happening for kids and it's not going to happen here.

00:35:13.000 When did you first become aware of these sorts of problems arising in a state like Tennessee?

00:35:17.000 I mean, it must have been shocking because Tennessee is a pretty conservative state.

00:35:20.000 Yeah, you know, it's interesting because a lot of times you might hear about something or you think you know about something, but you think it's so small or it's very I don't know, it's marginalized, or it's complicated, and you don't know the facts, and then as you look closer and closer, and the facts become real, and you realize, hey, this is a problem.

00:35:46.000 This is something that most people don't really imagine is happening, and then they figure out it's happening, and they go, you know, we really just ought to thoughtfully stop it.

00:35:55.000 Yeah, when you look at the education system as well, again, this ties back into sort of the educational standards, because the fact is that a lot of these schools are including books on the library shelves that are wildly inappropriate for children, or you have teachers in the classroom who are teaching gender theories that are completely at odds with both science and decency.

00:36:14.000 What sort of state Yeah, and most importantly, at odds with parents.

00:36:20.000 I mean, so I've got a book delivered to my office from a particular elementary school library in Tennessee, and I sat there and read the book, and it was shocking to me.

00:36:33.000 This really is in a library, and you hear about this, or you begin to hear about this sort of thing, and then you find out that it actually is really there.

00:36:45.000 And there's a part of me that says, gosh, if the parents in that county all read this book and knew that their kid in third grade, second grade, whatever, could read it, there'd be a revolt about that.

00:36:58.000 That book would not be in that library, so we ought to make a law.

00:37:03.000 That says, you know, it's unfortunate we have to, right?

00:37:06.000 It's unfortunate that the stuff is even there, but there it is in some rural county in Tennessee.

00:37:12.000 So that what we should do is make a law that makes it possible and actually allowable for parents to have a transparent look at every book.

00:37:22.000 There's a process.

00:37:23.000 If you don't like a book, you follow a process that goes through, you know, a process, an appropriate process to remove it or not, or have it not removed.

00:37:33.000 There are times we just sit back and go, gosh, it's a shame we have to engage in this stuff.

00:37:40.000 Oftentimes, the left says we're attacking this or attacking that.

00:37:46.000 What we really are doing, at least that's the way I view this, is we're just protecting and preserving this quality of life that we've sometimes taken for granted, I think, in education.

00:38:00.000 We took for granted that our kids were being taught fundamental educational academic subjects.

00:38:10.000 We just took for granted that that's what teachers would be doing and that's what school systems would be doing.

00:38:15.000 And then all of a sudden you find out, you know what?

00:38:17.000 They're doing something else that Hasn't been done before, and we probably ought to protect these kids and make sure that we're kind of upholding what has always been true.

00:38:31.000 We're not attacking it, we're just protecting it.

00:38:33.000 The game on the part of the social left on this sort of stuff is always really amazing because it's not happening.

00:38:38.000 It's good that it's happening.

00:38:39.000 Why are you noticing that it's happening?

00:38:40.000 Right?

00:38:41.000 That's always the three-step.

00:38:43.000 Yeah.

00:38:43.000 No, no, no.

00:38:44.000 There's no critical race theory being taught in schools.

00:38:46.000 Right.

00:38:46.000 No, there is critical race theory and it's very important that it be taught in schools.

00:38:49.000 Right.

00:38:49.000 But stop noticing that it's being taught in schools because this makes you a racist that you're noticing it.

00:38:52.000 Right, and then when you say, you know what, I think we probably ought to stop doing that, then man, then it really, the hit really comes.

00:39:01.000 So in a second, I want to ask you about the relationship between being governor and the White House and how you navigate that relationship, particularly with President Biden in office.

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00:40:37.000 Okay, so you're governor of a major state.

00:40:39.000 The President of the United States is not of your party.

00:40:42.000 He has made clear repeatedly that he gets very angry at various governors who refuse to do his bidding on a wide variety of issues, ranging from things like banning sex-denying health care, to issues of schooling, to COVID.

00:40:56.000 How do you deal with a White House that is routinely pretty brusque about how it treats governors?

00:41:04.000 I remember watching the One of the press briefings when COVID was still active, and I don't even remember exactly what the issue was about.

00:41:14.000 It had to do with mandates, I think, vaccine mandates.

00:41:18.000 And the president said to those governors who don't want to do this, we will move them out of the way.

00:41:28.000 And I remember thinking, he's talking to me.

00:41:30.000 I don't think that's the right thing for Tennesseans.

00:41:34.000 I don't think Tennesseans want that.

00:41:36.000 I don't think that's what we're going to do here.

00:41:38.000 And yet, he's saying I'm going to push the governor aside and mandate this thing anyway.

00:41:46.000 That was really the first time I'd seen that happen, and I found myself thinking, you know, that's not the way it works in this country.

00:41:57.000 There is a Tenth Amendment, and there are Rights and states have the authority to make decisions in the best interest of their people, and that's how it works.

00:42:09.000 If the people of that state don't like it, then they get elected officials that operate the way they want them to.

00:42:16.000 If they really don't like it and their elected officials aren't, then they go to another state where it's functioning the way they would like it to function.

00:42:24.000 We are a collection of states that have an enormous amount of power Most of which is delegated to the states.

00:42:33.000 And so you realize that you're dealing with a federal government that doesn't see it the same way that you do.

00:42:41.000 And so you push back and you push back on a regular basis, whether it's the issues you've brought up, what schools, children, healthcare, COVID, and you've seen states collectively come together Attorneys General of states.

00:43:01.000 Governors.

00:43:02.000 I'm very engaged in Republican Governors Association.

00:43:05.000 I'm on the Executive Committee.

00:43:06.000 I actually chaired the Public Policy Committee of that group, which really means that we convene governors around policy and around how Republican governors will respond to policy, particularly as it comes from the federal government, and how it impacts individual states.

00:43:27.000 There's a lot of power in the collective force of, there are 28 Republican governors right now, there might be 31 or 32 in a few weeks.

00:43:39.000 There's a lot of opportunity to push back on the federal government when they're overreaching, which they've done in profound ways in the last two years.

00:43:49.000 That's been our strategy, push back.

00:43:50.000 Well, this is one of the areas where I really am hopeful, and maybe it's because I moved from a blue state to a red state, and now my company's located in another red state.

00:43:58.000 But my hope for the country was, I would say, pretty dim when I was living in California, because the state government there tended to mirror whatever the priorities of the federal government were at the time.

00:44:07.000 But living in a state that is capable of disagreeing with the federal government and having a business in a state that disagrees with the federal government, it seems to me that the real hope for the country going forward is not going to be top-down diktats from the federal government, no matter who's in charge of the federal government, that the real hope may in fact lie with the states.

00:44:22.000 You know, we spend an enormous amount of time in politics focusing on the national level, on the Senate and the House and the President.

00:44:27.000 We'll talk about that in a second, but it seems to me that the real hope for the preservation of the country is going to lie in The laboratories of democracy that exist in these different places.

00:44:37.000 And you can see what the results are in these places, which is why, as you mentioned at the top of the show, you're seeing effectively mass migration to this entire region of the country.

00:44:45.000 I mean, the only area of the country that's seen demographic growth in terms of population growth over the course of the last 10 years has been the South in the United States.

00:44:52.000 It's nowhere else.

00:44:53.000 I mean, the Northeast is emptying out.

00:44:54.000 You're seeing the West empty out back toward the Midwest and toward the South.

00:45:00.000 And that's because different models of governance matter.

00:45:03.000 And I think it became most evident in the last two or three years, right?

00:45:07.000 People all across the country, frankly, have seen clearly it matters who governs, particularly in the state house.

00:45:18.000 And I think it's why you are about to potentially, I mean, who knows what's going to happen the next couple of weeks, but there's a very good possibility you're going to have a Republican governor in Oregon.

00:45:33.000 Well, let me just say this.

00:45:34.000 In the last 25 years, I think there have been six, five or six Democrat incumbent governors flipped in the last 25 years.

00:45:42.000 This year, There easily could be five or six this one year.

00:45:50.000 I think that's because Americans saw the differences in states that were run with conservative approaches, and you got five or six of those states that may end up, and that are traditionally, you know, Democrat states that may end up being run by a Republican governor.

00:46:06.000 Yeah, well one of the things that's amazing about that is Republicans, it feels like in many states, not all states, but it seems like in many states Republicans have done a better job of picking their gubernatorial candidates than some of their Senate candidates.

00:46:17.000 Obviously you look at some of these states, my sleeper pick for this election cycle is Lee Zeldin taking out Kathy Hochul in New York, which I think is actually, I think people are underestimating the possibility of that happening.

00:46:27.000 Minnesota is now running within a very narrow margin.

00:46:31.000 Michigan is running within a very narrow margin.

00:46:33.000 New Mexico is suddenly maybe running in a narrow margin.

00:46:37.000 Nevada, Wisconsin, Oregon, you've got, yeah, there's a lot of states that folks, especially the last two weeks, it's really becoming evident that they're in play.

00:46:49.000 And I think you're right.

00:46:51.000 You know, local It happens that the more local you get, the more valuable it is, and governorships are important.

00:47:03.000 One of the things that you're starting to see is even some independents, well many independents, but even some people on the left are beginning to look at the model of democratic governance in these states, and they're starting to get nervous.

00:47:14.000 I mean, again, New York is a great example of this, where People are upset about crime, and people are upset about taxation, and people are upset about a wide variety of issues, including COVID vax mandates and all the rest.

00:47:25.000 And the governor of the state is going in debate and basically saying, I don't even know why you're worried about any of this.

00:47:30.000 She infamously said to Lee Zeldin, I don't know why you're so worried about crime.

00:47:34.000 Meanwhile, people are getting pushed in front of subways in New York City.

00:47:37.000 You're seeing it in cities also.

00:47:39.000 I mean, Los Angeles, where I used to live, where our company used to be located.

00:47:42.000 Cenk Uygur, who is a far left guy on the Young Turks, he said, I don't understand why there are homeless people everywhere and there's crime everywhere.

00:47:48.000 And he's endorsing the former Republican, Rick Caruso, in that race.

00:47:53.000 It seems like the left has pushed so far so fast that now the backlash is coming.

00:47:58.000 Yeah, and there's another thing besides the issues of crime, which are incredibly important, but economics matter to people, right?

00:48:08.000 I mean, at the end of the day, your back pocket, your family's bank account, your income, They look at a state like Tennessee and I'll, you know, here's some facts that are interesting and they're not just for Tennessee.

00:48:22.000 They're typically in conservatively, fiscally managed states.

00:48:28.000 We are the lowest tax per capita state in America.

00:48:33.000 That hits your back pocket, every person that lives in this state.

00:48:38.000 I tell every time, everywhere I go, hey, if you're a citizen of Tennessee, as a percentage of your personal income, you have the lowest tax rate in the country of all 50 states.

00:48:46.000 We have the lowest debt per capita of any state in America.

00:48:50.000 We have, right now, the highest performing economy of all 50 states.

00:48:57.000 Tennessee's economy is the best in the country at the moment.

00:49:00.000 The lowest debt per capita, the lowest tax per capita, and we have surpluses that we are spending on things like infrastructure and education.

00:49:09.000 And we're spending our surplus dollars wisely into the things that matter to Tennesseans.

00:49:17.000 Broadband expansion, road building, conservative fiscal policy works.

00:49:24.000 And it powerfully impacts people's personal finances, and people move for that alone.

00:49:30.000 I mean, you can talk about all kinds of social issues of this or that, but when your tax rates are going to be lower, and people that come from California, Tennessee, get a big raise.

00:49:40.000 I mean, a big raise.

00:49:41.000 And people that come from any state with an income tax that comes to a state like Tennessee that has zero income tax, They get a big raise.

00:49:50.000 So, the economics of fiscally conservatively managed states, very powerful.

00:49:57.000 I mean, it seems like that gap is only going to grow, because as these bluer states, or the purplish-leaning blue states, empty of red people, and those red people tend to move back toward more conservative states, the bluer states are just going to govern more blue, and they're going to get to be worse places to live. 0.50

00:50:14.000 And then you really are courting a serious backlash, even in the blue states.

00:50:17.000 And that's what that's definitely feels like this this election cycle.

00:50:20.000 I mean, you were mentioning that Republicans could pick up four or five seats in in governor's houses.

00:50:24.000 How big do you think the red wave is is going to be this year?

00:50:27.000 Yeah, I don't know that.

00:50:29.000 I mean, I certainly, I am most focused on governor's races because I am involved in that.

00:50:37.000 I'm involved in the RGA.

00:50:39.000 Like I said, from the governor's standpoint, we've never seen an election like this with the overturning of that many incumbent governors.

00:50:48.000 Potentially.

00:50:49.000 I don't know.

00:50:50.000 If it equates to the Senate and the House, it'll be major.

00:50:56.000 If that's an example of what's going to happen, it could be big.

00:51:02.000 So in a second, I want to ask you, let's assume for a second that the Republicans are able to take back the House, able to take back the Senate.

00:51:07.000 What can they actually do at the federal level to remove power from the federal government and send that power back to the states?

00:51:13.000 We'll get to that in just one moment.

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00:52:31.000 Okay, so let's talk about, you know, you're the governor of the state.

00:52:33.000 Obviously, the federal government has been over the course of the last century.

00:52:37.000 Agglomerating more and more power at the center of government, there needs to be a reversal.

00:52:41.000 And some of that has happened through osmosis.

00:52:44.000 Just effectually speaking, there was no way for the federal government to run everything during COVID.

00:52:48.000 And so for the first time in a very long time, people started to look at how various states were handling various topics.

00:52:54.000 And we're starting to see this also with regard to abortion law, which I want to ask you about in a second.

00:52:57.000 But let's say that the Republicans are able to take the House, take the Senate, And let's say, even moving forward, take the presidency.

00:53:04.000 The Republicans have power.

00:53:05.000 What exactly should they be doing at the federal level?

00:53:07.000 Should they be attempting to make federal policy for all the states, or should they be really focused on systemic changes that delegate power back to the states?

00:53:14.000 I think that it kind of depends on what those leaders are actually like.

00:53:18.000 So I don't know what all of the Republican leadership will look like at the federal level, because I'm not at the federal level.

00:53:31.000 If, in fact, Republicans will be conservative, and what I mean by that is we'll think through the sort of fundamental principles of Governance from a conservative standpoint, which would, in effect, say that the states should decide the vast majority of things, except for those powers that are specifically delegated to the federal government.

00:53:56.000 And that's very clear.

00:53:58.000 It's very constitutionally clear.

00:53:59.000 And by the way, I think the erosion of the Adherence to the principles of the Constitution, part of the problem that we're facing with the federal government's become bigger and bigger.

00:54:14.000 If, in fact, there's a realization by the Republican federal majority that the states are the best decider, I think that's, you know, this country will be much stronger.

00:54:29.000 It'll be much better.

00:54:31.000 It'll be much better for its people.

00:54:34.000 And the philosophy and the idea of democracy will actually be playing out, and that's, I mean, that's good for America.

00:54:43.000 So, I want to ask you also about abortion policy.

00:54:46.000 So obviously, for the first time in my lifetime, for sure, but in half a century, the states actually have the power now to make law with regard to protecting unborn human beings.

00:54:57.000 And that was always sort of a talking point for Republicans, but it never actually had to be effectuated.

00:55:01.000 And now the rubber hits the road because Roe v. Wade has been overturned and it's all now back at the at the state level.

00:55:06.000 So you're the governor of a state.

00:55:07.000 How exactly do you handle the abortion issue?

00:55:10.000 Obviously very fraught.

00:55:11.000 A lot of people are very animated by this particular issue.

00:55:15.000 So what's the best way to handle that issue at the state level?

00:55:19.000 You know, sometimes you're faced with an issue that, at least for me personally, that really is not political.

00:55:29.000 And I say that for me personally, because for a long time I have been one who believes that it's It should not be happening that we take the lives of unborn children.

00:55:45.000 I served on the board of a crisis pregnancy center, a women's health clinic, probably 25 years ago.

00:55:54.000 And I've always believed that somewhere, somehow, this country took a wrong turn when it decided that the lives of children were not actually lives of children if they weren't born.

00:56:11.000 And that somehow that narrative took hold.

00:56:14.000 And so I just have very strong personal beliefs about that.

00:56:18.000 And I'm not apologetic about that.

00:56:21.000 I'm not, as you've probably picked up on, I'm not an angry person.

00:56:27.000 And I'm not even mad at the people who don't agree with me about this subject.

00:56:34.000 I, however, am very convicted that this is something that we should be doing, which is protecting the lives of those children.

00:56:43.000 They're the most vulnerable, the most innocent, the ones who can absolutely not protect themselves, and they are They are human beings, and so I feel very strongly about it.

00:56:55.000 I just think Republicans should say how they feel about it.

00:56:58.000 I think they ought to be happy to say, you know, like I say, look, I realize there are a lot of people that don't agree with me, and I kind of understand that people agree to disagree, but this is something that's important to me.

00:57:13.000 This is where I am on it, and we will advocate for that in this state.

00:57:17.000 Our legislature is in the same place.

00:57:20.000 The people of Tennessee, I think, generally are in the same place.

00:57:23.000 And it's one of those examples I said earlier where democracy beautifully works out for For people with different opinions, there will be states that have and protect the right for someone to get an abortion, but there will be states like Tennessee that believe that protecting the life of the child is the way to go.

00:57:42.000 And one of the things that was kind of amazing in watching the original political response is, first of all, the lie that suddenly abortion had been banned literally everywhere in the country.

00:57:49.000 The media tried to pervade that.

00:57:51.000 But then there was the kind of move toward, well, this is a great electoral issue for Democrats.

00:57:54.000 Democrats are definitely going to win on this.

00:57:56.000 They're going to sweep the nation.

00:57:58.000 People will be so excited to get out to vote on the Democratic side of the aisle.

00:58:01.000 It'll completely shift the election.

00:58:02.000 I said at the time, I don't see how that's going to work, considering that literally all law on this issue is going to be made at the state level.

00:58:07.000 So what ramifications, precisely, does that have for the House or the Senate?

00:58:12.000 And it turns out that most states have populations that are fairly clear-cut about what they want.

00:58:16.000 And it's pretty obvious about just how far you can go.

00:58:18.000 Tennessee can go further. 0.99

00:58:19.000 in terms of protecting human life and get away with it electorally than, for example, Florida can, which is a much more purple state on the issue.

00:58:26.000 And both of those states are going to be significantly more conservative on the issue than New York, which is going to allow you to abort children until they're 97 years old and outside the womb.

00:58:34.000 So all of that is to say that the sort of localist viewpoint, once enacted, actually defangs the issue in a lot of ways.

00:58:43.000 And this is something that the left has refused to acknowledge, is that what Roe v. Wade actually did was it made the issue significantly hotter.

00:58:50.000 It actually locked into place one standard for the entire country, and that standard was a violation of the moral precepts of at least half the country.

00:58:58.000 And I think the other thing that People hadn't really thought that much about it.

00:59:03.000 Maybe they have, but people before this whole Dobbs decision, most people already knew where they were on this issue, right?

00:59:13.000 And they were voting on it anyway.

00:59:15.000 It was a part of their election process anyway.

00:59:21.000 So the big shift in the way people voted, and frankly, the states that have the most Democrats, they lived in a state where it's going to be protected.

00:59:30.000 So not a lot of change for them politically, and I think that's why you're probably not seeing it having the effect on the election that people thought it would.

00:59:40.000 People already knew how they felt about this issue, and they'd already been voting that way.

00:59:46.000 So this issue tends to open up a sort of broader conversation that's been happening, and it's really kind of fascinating, on the right, between traditional conservatives and people who call themselves the new right.

00:59:55.000 Traditional conservatives tend to be, I would say, more liberty-oriented, more into the belief that government should be involved in as little as humanly possible.

01:00:03.000 The new right, they say they're there to promote the common good, and if we can use the power of government in order to promote the common good, then we will.

01:00:09.000 So you, as the governor of the state, how do you draw that balance between you have the power, Well, that's the challenge of anyone in leadership, particularly in government.

01:00:16.000 I am philosophically a person that believes that less government is better government.

01:00:19.000 How do you decide where the government belongs and where the government does not belong?

01:00:24.000 That's the challenge of anyone in leadership, particularly in government.

01:00:29.000 I am philosophically a person that believes that less government is better government.

01:00:38.000 There are exceptions to that rule, though, and there are times when the government has to intervene or has an obligation.

01:00:47.000 How about that?

01:00:47.000 Has an obligation to intervene, for example, to protect children in certain instances, or for the common good, whatever that common good is.

01:00:58.000 And it can't be just politically the common good.

01:01:00.000 It has to actually be It has to actually be for the health and well-being of people, for the lives and livelihoods of people, that kind of well-being.

01:01:09.000 But those are hard decisions.

01:01:11.000 I mean, because what one person calls the common good, the other person calls a principle and a freedom, you know, a liberty that is ours.

01:01:22.000 The arguments there make it all the more difficult.

01:01:25.000 But that's why I say sometimes going back to Reminding ourselves what is laid out and clearly defined in the Constitution as rights and liberties and freedoms and the protection of such.

01:01:42.000 If we just go back and remind ourselves of those and say, these are things we know to be true, Everything else is up for debate.

01:01:51.000 So when you look at the country, we've talked a lot about federalism and differences between California and Tennessee.

01:01:57.000 What do you see as the future sort of principles that hold us together?

01:02:01.000 This is one of the big questions people are asking these days, because it seems like there's a vast gap between not just governance strategies, but entire worldviews between California and Tennessee or New York and Texas.

01:02:11.000 And a lot of people are worried the country is just going to fall apart, that in the absence of any sort of uniting principle, What exactly is supposed to hold us together other than the sheer inertia weight of the federal government itself?

01:02:25.000 Well, I don't think the federal government holds us together.

01:02:30.000 I'm sort of philosophical in this kind of answer.

01:02:33.000 I tend to, because I haven't been in politics a long time, I tend to think that most Americans are not thinking about all of this stuff that we're talking about in a very big fashion every single day.

01:02:49.000 There's a lot of times where I will go back to where I grew up, and I go home on the weekends, we live on a farm, and there are folks there in that community that are my friends that I know, and I'll be around with them.

01:03:02.000 Guys that are farming, or guys that run a little business there, and I'll say, what do you think about, have you heard anything about this, or what do you think about it?

01:03:10.000 And what I realize is that they don't think much about that.

01:03:13.000 They haven't seen it.

01:03:14.000 They don't know about it.

01:03:15.000 Yeah, they have an opinion, but it's much more broad to them than the nuances that most of us talk about that are in government and politics.

01:03:27.000 I think Americans are really smart.

01:03:30.000 I think Americans are remarkable people.

01:03:35.000 This is a remarkable country.

01:03:37.000 It's amazing.

01:03:38.000 It's a blessed nation.

01:03:40.000 As such, I do think we Americans tend to stay on track.

01:03:47.000 When this country gets too far over here or too far over here, we make a course adjustment.

01:03:54.000 We've done it for 300 years, basically.

01:03:59.000 We make a course adjustment and we find ourselves moving down the path of a more perfect union.

01:04:09.000 Every time we make that adjustment, we become a little bit more of a perfect union.

01:04:14.000 I believe that about this country.

01:04:15.000 I'm very optimistic about it.

01:04:17.000 I don't think we're going to crash and burn.

01:04:20.000 I think we're going to make the decisions that we have to make as people.

01:04:25.000 I think that states will jostle around and people will find out where this is happening and that's happening.

01:04:33.000 Things will change.

01:04:34.000 Populations will change.

01:04:36.000 Demographics will change.

01:04:37.000 They have throughout the history of our country for the last couple hundred years.

01:04:43.000 That'll continue to happen.

01:04:44.000 I'm very optimistic about this country.

01:04:45.000 We'll find leaders that unite.

01:04:48.000 I think we're at a highly divisive moment right now, but I actually think people are hungry for, not for a compromise of principles, but for a more civil debate and I think when there's overreach, the people respond to that overreach.

01:05:06.000 I think we've seen overreach on the left.

01:05:08.000 Americans are about to respond to that in a couple weeks.

01:05:11.000 Pretty optimistic.

01:05:12.000 So what do you make of the harsh media push for sort of the alarmism?

01:05:17.000 The theme has been for the past several years, really since Trump's election in 2016, that we're on the death of democracy, right?

01:05:23.000 This is the pitch that Democrats are making across the country.

01:05:26.000 They can't obviously pitch their economic record.

01:05:28.000 So it's become, if you elect Republicans, democracy will die.

01:05:30.000 If you elect Republicans, the fascists will have arrived.

01:05:34.000 If we lose this election, there might not be another election.

01:05:37.000 And how can you value your pocketbook over things like our republic, capital O, capital R?

01:05:43.000 What exactly are we supposed to do in the face of these predictions?

01:05:46.000 Is that a media creation?

01:05:48.000 Well, divisiveness is a great desire of the media.

01:05:54.000 It's very interesting, right?

01:05:55.000 Divisiveness sells, divisiveness is interesting.

01:05:58.000 People like to read, you know, people fighting and people like to watch a debate that's just contentious.

01:06:06.000 Divisiveness is a very valuable tool in entertainment and media, for whatever reason. 0.95

01:06:17.000 I don't know why our human nature is attracted to that, but it is.

01:06:20.000 It's exciting, it's divisive.

01:06:22.000 That's a strategy.

01:06:24.000 I think that to the degree that there is an ability to create, Division and divisiveness will always create more and more of that interesting story.

01:06:38.000 I think there's a real intentionality there.

01:06:40.000 You can have all sorts of evil intent discussions about that, and is there really a desire to break up something that we hold sacred?

01:06:53.000 I don't know, but I know that Divisiveness is interesting and people pursue it, and I think it's actually very harmful for our country.

01:07:01.000 I think, and I think Americans, I don't know for sure about this for certain, but I think Americans, regular everyday Americans, would be very attracted to the idea of principled decency in this country.

01:07:17.000 That's something that we, I believe, we desperately need.

01:07:21.000 So in a second, I want to ask you what's on the agenda for the next term, assuming, as you will, that you will win the governor's seat again.

01:07:27.000 Our conversation is going to continue with all of that for our Daily Wire Plus members.

The Ben Shapiro Show - November 06, 2022

Bill Lee | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 133

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