Transcript of Kentucky’s governor on the shutdown and political divisions

Kentucky governor, Andy Besheer critiques the President and thinks about trying to succeed him.

To lead with the right example, which I think is humanity, as opposed to the President's cruelty.

A Democratic governor talks of winning in a red state on a special episode of Up First from NPR News. Andy Besheer is responding to a federal government shutdown and the President's threat to fire federal workers.

People aren't a negotiating tool. They are not a problem. And that's how he's treating these families.

Besheer is also one of several Democratic governors who are thinking of a run for higher office. His calling card is winning in the states where Democrats usually lose. How does a Democrat appeal to rural and conservative voters? And how has his party lost so much ground? Stay with us for a talk with Andy Besheer. Governor, thanks for hosting It's great to be in Kentucky.

Thanks for coming to Frankfurt. We're proud to have you.

Well, that's great. And we are here on the morning that a federal government shutdown has begun. How is this state affected, if at all?

Well, the state is going to be affected in a number of ways, but the first way it's affected is our families that work for the federal government aren't going to work today for the most part.

There's a federal building just a couple doors down from where we are.

Unless they're in certain areas. That's going to be a hardship for those families. While typically a deal is eventually reached and they receive that back pay, they're still going to struggle in the days and possibly the weeks that it takes for Congress to come together and agree on a plan. But what's happening right now is the Democrats are trying to prevent health care costs from increasing for millions of Americans. If we don't see an extension of the ACA tax credits, it's not just those that get their health insurance from the ACA, it's also all other insurers that are likely to raise their rates significantly. So at a time when Americans are struggling with the costs of everything, I believe Democrats in Washington, DC, are trying to provide a little bit of relief. And then what we're seeing on the other side is the President making threats, almost negotiating through blackmail, saying, If you don't agree to exactly what I want, I'm going to fire a whole bunch of people and cause a lot of pain.

Do you think he's right? He's going to fire a bunch of people?

Well, if he fires a bunch of people, it's not because Democrats wouldn't reach a deal. It's because the President decides and actually fires people. People aren't a negotiating tool. They are not a prop, and that's how he's treating these families.

Could Democrats not have done what they have urge Republicans to do in the past, which is simply pass a short term bill and negotiate for a few more weeks.

Well, it's a really challenging situation because you don't want any of those families that are impacted. You don't want the services that are impacted. You don't want the economy to be impacted in the way that it is. But it appears that right now, the President nor Congressional Republicans will negotiate at all. That means if Democrats don't take a stand, your health care costs go up for most Americans. So you can understand trying to take that stand, because if your groceries cost too much, if transportation costs too much, if you're struggling to afford a home or pay your rent, and now your health care costs, your premiums are going to go up, and you're not going to have to pay that every month. That's going to hurt the American people that much more.

How many Kentuckyans are on those Obamacare subsidies that are at issue here?

Well, a significant number, and it would really be compounded by the Big ugly Bill, which looks like it's going to kick about 200,000 Kentuckyans off their health care coverage. You then add this on top of it, plus the increase in all other premiums and what it's going to do. You look at the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid, and we went from one highest uninsured rates to one of the lowest in the country. It's helping our people become healthier. It's helping us climb the list in economic development and bring in great new jobs for our people. But the idea that the President's legislation, because it was his, is going to close up to 35 rural hospitals, is going to impact those local economies, and require you to drive two and a half hours just to see a doctor, is definitely moving backwards. And this refusal to re-up that help for those covered under the ACA is just compounding an already devastating cut that's coming.

I want to be totally real here. I realize there's an issue that Democrats have raised having to do with Obamacare subsidies. But is part of this also that your party felt that they needed to do something to show resistance to this President because they object to so very much of his agenda and his style of governing?

I think that, at least for me, the reason to stand up and push back right now has to be one that directly impacts American families. To go through a government shutdown, which is a serious thing, needs to be If it's going to occur, and it is, based on something incredibly important to our families, and certainly the cost of your health care is that important.

I want to hear your response to the way the President has talked about some of his constituents. He has said that if this shutdown comes, shortly before the shutdown, he said that he could do things that are very bad for them, meaning Democrats. He also spoke before 800 or so senior military officers and talked about an enemy within. Speaking of someone who represents a state that voted for Trump, how do you think about that rhetoric?

It's incredibly concerning. It is not presidential, and I think it's un-American. America loves our military, our armed services. We are home of the free because of the brave. One of the reasons that we have such confidence in our military is that it is professional and not political. These generals come in. They do their job every day. They've dedicated their lives to protecting this country, and they are given this speech that is grossly political. They are dressed down by a Secretary of war that hasn't while he served, didn't serve nearly as long as these individuals or rise in the ranks. Then suggesting our cities, our training grounds for foreign conflict is about as un-American as you can get. Part of Our American ethos is you don't get off the plane at one of our airports and see armed military like you do in other countries. I think it alarms a lot of Americans, and it should alarm all of us.

How do you think it plays here in Kentucky where so many people voted I think people are very uncomfortable with it.

They didn't vote for this type of governance. Yes, they were worried that the American dream was slipping away. They were willing to take a chance with someone that they thought would do things very differently, but they didn't vote to make their lives harder. They didn't vote to make us more cruel. They were hoping that this would be a president that could help them pay bills at the end of the month. But instead, tariffs are causing layoffs. They are raising prices on the American people, and families are going to have a harder time in these next two years.

In a moment, we'll confront Kentucky Governor Andy Besheer with a question that voters here wanted to ask him.

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I want to tell you, governor, I prepared for this interview by talking with Kentuckyans. I called my former college roommate from Morehead State University, for example. We also drove to Bardstown, which is a tourist town, lots of bourbon, lots of distilleries. It's in a county, as you probably know, that voted for Trump, and also in a different year, voted for you. I asked people, What do you want to ask the governor? The most common The question was, Is he running for President?

I'll give you the same answer that I give every time that I'm asked. Right now, my job is to speak reason into some of the chaos that we're seeing in this country, to be a common sense, common ground, get things done type of voice because the American people want a party, any party, that will focus on their everyday needs. Next year, I've committed to be the head of the Democratic Governors Association, and we're going to win a lot of races across this country. Country because Democratic governors govern well. Here in Kentucky, we've broken every record for private sector investment, jobs, wages, exports, tourism, and you see that out of a lot of Democratic governors. Then after that, I'll sit down with my family and we'll see. What's most important to me is that the next President be someone that can heal this country, that can bring people back together because we can't have this us versus them. I think about that pledge of allegiance where we pledge to keep our country indivisible, yet we have a president that tries to divide us over every single issue. If I think I'm a candidate that can do that, I'll have a long conversation with my family.

But if it's somebody else, I can support them because at the end of the day, I care more about this country and the future of this country, about not leaving a broken country to my kids than I do about any title.

How do you think about that personally as to whether you would make that effort? Do you have to believe you would win, for example?

What's on your mind? It's at least a couple of years off when I'm looking at what my job is now to be the best governor of Kentucky that I can be, and then to hopefully be a national voice that gets the Democratic Party, but I hope Republicans and independents, too, focused on the things that matter most to people, their job, their next doctor's appointment, the roads and bridges they drive, the school they drop their kids off at, and whether they feel safe in their communities. These things that shouldn't be bipartisan, they should non-partisan, and that we can get results. Then a strong commitment next year to the Democratic Governors Association. When I agree to take on a job, I do it to the fullest.

What is the case for a Democratic nominee who's the governor of a red state?

I'd say if you look at Kentucky, the temperature has turned down. People are willing to vote for people of both parties, like you talked about. We don't see neighbors yelling at neighbors, and we are all excited about the success that we've had because we believe we've done it together. We've been top five in economic development per capita every year that I've been governor. We've seen jobs come to a lot of places that haven't had jobs in far too long. We built a first hospital in our largest African-American community in 150 years. We see success here, and that's a recognition that success isn't red or blue, Democrat or Republican, left or right. A good job is just good for a family.

When you talked about jobs, I was immediately thinking of an earlier this year. Tim Cook of Apple showed up at the White House, showed the President some glass, and he said, This is the screen for an iPhone, and we're going to be making a lot more of these in the United States, specifically at a plant in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. With that in mind, would you say that President Trump has done anything good for Kentucky?

Well, I think any President, any President that I have served with, I've always made the commitment to where if I disagree, I'm going to speak up. But if I agree, I'm going to say that, too. For instance, in our February flooding, President Trump's FEMA response was really good. The folks on the ground were good to our people. It was one of the best flood responses that I've seen, and the President deserves credit for that. I think a lot of changes were made in FEMA under President Biden, but this flood occurred under President Trump, and the response was good. Certainly, the Apple announcement is going to help there. Now, I will say we're seeing the impact of tariffs, not just in the future, but hitting now. We just had a furniture company in Georgetown announced that they're going to lay off 100 employees, 100 of my family's, because tariffs are making the raw materials that are ultimately used for that furniture too expensive.

This is wood from Canada or wherever else.

Is that what we're talking about? When we look at right now, costs going up on the American people, the tariffs hit you in so many different ways. The price of housing is impacted by lumber and any tariffs that are on that. The President just announced cabinets that are imported are going to have a tariff because his tariff policy has gone from across the board to reciprocal, to industry-specific, to company-specific, and now is product-specific. It just changes every day, multiple times a day. But if you think about the lumber getting hit, and then those cabinets, if they cost that much more, the price of the house costs that much more. So the President's actions are not making housing more affordable, they're making it less. I can't imagine right now being a young couple that can't afford to buy that first house in the same decade that their parents did. And that weighs on the American people.

Kentucky Governor Andy Besheer. Now, if he were to run for higher office, his record would be scrutinized. And in a moment, we have questions about his performance during the pandemic.

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When I was talking with voters in Bardstown, there were some other common themes. Everybody called you Andy. Yes. Everybody felt they were on a first-name basis with you. There were people who said they like you and they voted for you. There were people who said they like you and they did not vote for you because of this or that issue that they felt strongly about. And then there was a woman who said she voted for you once, the first time in 2019, voted against you the second time in 2023, and went on to vote for President Trump. And her changing factor was the pandemic. She felt the restrictions were too strict and that you had gone too far. Looking back on the pandemic now, you were widely praised at the time. But is there anything you would change about your performance or this state's performance looking back now?

Well, looking back on the pandemic, we had to make every decision based on the information we had at the time. If we could have a whole pandemic's worth information about what was going to happen, if we could see the future in the beginning, I think we would all make decisions that would move us closer to that future. But every decision I made was based on trying to save as many lives as I could. I knew the decisions would be unpopular. I was okay if it meant I would never win re-election if I could save 10 more lives.

I think you said that at the time, didn't you?

It's one of the most important things I've ever been called on to do. Yes, people don't like being told they can't or shouldn't do something, and I get that. But if it meant that their neighbor survived, if it meant that grandparent who was taking care of their grandkids because we have more grandparents raising grandkids in Kentucky per capita than just about any state, If we lose that individual who during the pandemic, we could have easily lost, then that child has nobody. Looking back, I know I made the decisions for the right reasons, and I stand by them.

Why do you think it is that Democrats have done so poorly in rural areas and rural states?

Well, I believe that the Republican Party has been very effective in demonizing Democrats based on national politics and national issues. But I think that Democrats can win back voters in those rural areas, especially with what we're seeing right now. But Democrats need to be the common sense, common ground, get results type of party, one that spends 80% of its time on concerns that impact 100% of the American population. I've seen that voters are willing to vote for you, even if they disagree on some social issue. If they believe that you're working to create a better job for them, if you're working to make sure they can see a specialist in their own community, if you're working to make their kids' public school better, if you recognize that the roads they drive are so important that a new one might save them 20 minutes each way on their commute and they get 40 more minutes with their family. But the Democrats need to focus, because right now the American people think that Democrats are focused on 60 or 70 different issues, all with equal time and attention when what we need to do is be laser-focused on people's everyday needs.

You gave me a number of 80% on practical everyday issues. What's the number now, do you think, for the Democratic Party?

Well, I don't think it's 80%. What some Democrats I guess, would say, and they'd be right, is we can't abandon our convictions, and we shouldn't. I remember during my re-election, my legislature passed the nastiest piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation our state had ever seen. I knew they did it in part so that they could run tens of millions of dollars of negative ads if I vetoed it. But I did veto it because it was the right thing to do. But I also explained my veto to the people of Kentucky. I said, My faith teaches me that all children are children of God, and I didn't want these kids being picked on. The next day, I'm opening a factory because that's where we've got to be the next day. Stand up for your convictions, but show the people that the majority of your time is impacting something that they know that impacts them daily. But I'll never forget that next day, a guy comes up to me, and I was pretty sure I was going to hear some disagreement. But he says, Governor, I'm not sure I agree with what you did yesterday, but I know you're doing what you think is Right.

And so as Democrats, 80% of our time on issues that impact 100% of our families. And when we stand up for our convictions, things that might be outside that 80%, we got to explain our why. Not just the what, but the why.

I think I hear you saying you're telling people, This is my belief. I'm not asking you to change your belief, but this is my belief, and I have to act on it. And I get that.

It shows them respect. Whether they always vote for me or never vote for me, explaining the why shows people respect.

How are you handling some of the more divisive questions on that issue that you raised? Who goes to what bathroom? At what age people can have surgery? That thing.

Well, our legislature has passed some legislation that I disagree with. I believe that discrimination is wrong, but we also have to understand that for most Americans, they don't experience, see these issues impacting them daily. I veto that anti-LGBTQ legislation and still won re-election by more than I had originally won. That's because I can explain my why, why I believe what I believe, but then also make sure that I'm working on those everyday concerns and people see that their lives are better or that I'm trying to make them better. It's also the reason I think you saw some people who might have described themselves as pro-choice voting for Donald Trump, because if they can't pay for their kid's next prescription, it's hard to get to anything else.

I was thinking back a little bit about the way the electoral map has changed, the way the Senate map has changed. Democrats are in a position where they struggle to think of which states they can get the electoral votes from to elect a President struggled to think of where they would get up to 51 to regain control of the Senate. And yet not very long ago, in 2008, I looked this up. There was at least one Democratic senator from the following states: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana, Missouri, and Iowa. You've suggested the Democrats have lost focus. I'm interested if you also think Democrats have lost interest even in speaking to people in rural areas.

Well, the Democratic Party needs to invest. It needs to invest all across America. I think I'm living, breathing proof that Democrats can win even in tough places. I think you'll see next year when we have 36 governor's races, us competing in those states where we haven't seen a Democratic senator or a Democratic governor, at least in 8-12 years. You look at a great candidate like Rob Sands in Iowa showing what's possible. You look at all across the United States where Republicans are putting up extremists, and the people of the United States don't like extremism. We're going to offer a candidate, again, laser-focused on the everyday concerns of the people in their state. I think you're going to see the map starting to change based on those governor's races.

Do you perceive then multiple places where Democrats might gain ground that they haven't won in years? Yes.

Multiple states. That's my job next year.

Okay. There was a debate recently, a podcast debate between the writer, Tana Hasi Coates and the New York Times columnist, Esra Klein. They were essentially trying to address the predicament or even the despair of liberals progressives Democrats. And Esra Klein said an interesting thing, we, he's talking about Democrats here, I believe, we've stopped doing politics. We've written a lot of people off. And in writing them off, we are losing and we are unable to protect ourselves.

We need to talk to and serve all the American people. Now, for me as governor, I run as a proud Democrat, but the moment that that I win, I'm governor for all the people of Kentucky. We need to show the American people that we're out there to lift everyone up and not to kick anyone while they're down, to lead with the right example, which I think is humanity, as opposed to the President's cruelty, but that we will get results for them. We need to be doing that in rural America, and we need to be doing it in urban America. If you think about rural America, where Democrats haven't done well, just look at the President's actions and what they're going to cause. You are going to see rural hospitals all across America laying people off or closing entirely because of the big ugly bill that the President has owned. And think about that local economy, because that rural hospital is the largest payroll. It is the number two employer behind the public school. If it closes or shrinks, and it will at least shrink dramatically, the restaurant closes, the local coffee shop closes, the local bank probably closes, too.

And this is all because of a President who broke his promise when he said he wouldn't cut Medicaid, and then has cut it more than any other President in my lifetime. Look at his tariffs and the impact on strawberries. The head of the Soybean Association is being very loud about the damage that calls in.

Soybean farmers are on the edge of bankruptcy, sure.

Soybean farmers vote almost 100% Republican. Yet it is the policy that's put into place by one man alone, Donald Trump, who most of them voted for, that is now impacting the livelihood of their families. And I'm not judging their vote. I'm just hoping they're seeing what's happening. And ultimately, they're being betrayed.

I want to push this a little farther. There are people on your side of the argument, Democrats or progressives, who will say and are very loudly saying now on social media, Why should I appeal to someone who's a racist? Why should I appeal to someone who's a bigot? Why should I appeal to someone who refuses to recognize my humanity, who is a fascist, or who thinks Donald Trump is great? That is the question that they will ask. What is your answer to that question?

Well, we have to talk to everyone if we want a better America. If we want to get past this us versus them, if we want to have our McCarthyism moment where everybody breathes out, recognizes that things have gone too far and comes back together, then we have to be talking to everyone. I remember I'm standing in an elevator, oh, probably two years ago, and there's a guy who turns towards me and says, I owe you an apology. I said, What do you mean? He said, Well, when people were protesting outside where you and your family lived during the pandemic, I was there. He said, I was scared. I was angry. A couple of months ago, I got vaccinated. He looked at me and said, And I'm sorry. I said, It's okay. It was scary on all of us, and I'm just glad you're safe. We've got to recognize that That our lives are complicated. What people have gone through is complicated. There's a lot of trauma out there and a lot of difficulty. We can't lose faith that people can be better and that we, as a country, can be better. But to do that, we've got to encourage people to come back, to treat their neighbor as themselves, to live out that golden rule and parable, the Good Samaritan, and not lose faith in humanity.

We're in a moment of a lot of political violence, to state the obvious. We're in a moment of a lot of gun violence. There is an NPR-PBS Maris poll out which finds that Americans, not for the first time, feel that controlling gun violence is more important to them than Second Amendment rights. That's a majority of people. But I imagine if the poll were just in Kentucky, it might be a little bit different. How are you addressing that issue?

Well, certainly, political violence and all violence is wrong. Now is the time for leaders to make a choice, to either condemn all All violence against anyone, anytime it happens, full stop, period, or only condemn violence when it is perpetrated against people who look like them, sound like them, and believe the same things that they believe. One is leadership that unites people, and one is politicizing, even murder, to further divide people. We desperately need the leadership right now that pushes back against violence, period. This is personal to me. I lost one of my He was his friends in a mass shooting several years ago. At a bank, yes. Yeah, at Old National Bank. Actually, a guy that was working for me was in the parking lot at the time. When you lose somebody like that, sometimes it feels like it's 10 years ago, and sometimes it feels like it's 10 minutes ago. I understand those that are hurting, but to use a terrible act of violence to further divide the country instead of bringing it together is just wrong and misses the mark. But when we look at things that should be done, certainly in my state, we don't even have a red flag law.

In red flag laws, people say our blue state laws, no, Florida has a red flag law. The idea is if the police know that someone's about to commit murder, they can go to the court and stop it. When you look at our courts, they're who interpret the Second Amendment to start with. If we trust courts to determine the custody of our children, certainly we can trust them with this.

You don't have a red flag law, perhaps partly because you an overwhelmingly Republican legislature. I was looking at the numbers. The State House of Representatives is 80/20, only 20 Democrats. The Senate looks even a little worse for your party. Why do you think it is that even as you have done well, the rest of the Democratic Party has done so poorly in this state?

Well, there have been decades of national Republican dollars coming into Kentucky, demonizing the Democratic Party. We haven't seen the same investment, and we're not the only state that would say But I think now is a time where Democrats in Kentucky and across America can rededicate themselves to serving the American people, to focusing on making things more affordable, to focus on creating better jobs and bettering people's lives because the President who promised he'd do that is doing anything but that. I mean, he is gambling away our economic gains on non-economic grounds. Look at Brazil, where we have a trade surplus. Yet he has imposed his terrace because he doesn't like a prosecution occurring against an individual there. And because of that, the price of coffee and the price of hamburger are going up on the American people.

You've shown your objections to the current administration, but I want to note that each of the last several presidents has ultimately given the country some broad idea of what they wanted to do, where they wanted to take the country. I can think of Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, true each time, Joe Biden, something that they wanted to do. What is it that you would do or that you think Democrats should be urging to do with and to the country should they win the next presidential election?

We ought to be talking about how to create a better life for Americans, how to make people's lives just a little bit easier. Right now, the most concerning poll I've seen is a number of people who think the American dream is slipping away. The American dream is so fundamental to our country that if you play by the rules and you work hard, that you can get ahead. We need to be looking at all those areas that people are struggling that lead them to believe that they're not going to be able to achieve and addressing them. That young couple has to be able to buy a house in the same decade that their parents did. If you work a full-time job, you ought to be able to pay your bills and not have to be working an extra one or two at night. We've got to make sure that people can afford the health care that they need and that they feel safe in their communities. Right now, the American people deserve a refocus on them. Less politics, less Democrat-Republican, less conservative-liberal, and more on the everyday concerns of the American people. Because I remember riding with a bus driver from Woodford County, not far from here.

She knew exactly how much her grocery bill was every month that she could just barely afford, but she also knew how much the vacation was that she couldn't. She and other American families ought to be able to pay that grocery bill and go on that vacation. Mission.

Governor Besheer, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

This has been a special edition of Up First from NPR News. It's one of our all-platform interviews. It's a podcast. It's and it's on the radio on NPR's Morning Edition. This episode of Up First was edited by Rina Edvani, produced by Adam Bierne and Julie Deppenbrock. We get engineering support from Jay Ciz and Russell Wells at Louisville Public Media. Our executive producer is Jay Shaler. I'm Steve Inscape. Thanks for joining us.

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