Podcast: The problem with pragmatism

TRANSCRIPT: The problem with pragmatism

Steve Bullock:

From my perspective, Trump took 'America First' into 'America Alone'.

Ian Bremmer:

Hi, I am Ian Bremmer and welcome the GZERO World Podcast, an audio version of what you can find on public television where I analyze global topics, sit down with big guests, and make use of little puppets. This week I'm talking with Montana governor and Democratic presidential candidate, Steve Bullock, the very rare, heck even endangered, political animal who convinced voters in a deep red state to go blue. But he's polling around 0% and that didn't qualify him for this month's debate, so I'm asking the question, can he pull this off? Let's get to it.

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Ian Bremmer:

Governor of Montana, Steve Bullock.

Steve Bullock:

It's great to be with you.

Ian Bremmer:

Good to be with you, sir. You are running for president.

Steve Bullock:

I am.

Ian Bremmer:

Which is an objectively ludicrous thing to do. I mean, at what point did it become obvious to you that, my God, I'm actually making this decision? Me personally, I'm going to say that I can be president of America.

Steve Bullock:

And certainly wasn't, even as I was serving initially as governor, it wasn't the thought I'll be governor of a state, I'll run for president. It was sometime after the 2016 election. And it was two different things that really pushed me along the way to that. One of which was I was the only Democrat in the country to get reelected, right, in a statewide race where Trump won. He took my 10-

Ian Bremmer:

Won by 20.

Steve Bullock:

Yeah, he won by 20, I won by four. 25 to 30% of my voters voted for Donald Trump. And it's interesting because I was asked to travel quite a bit after that. And when I'd go to democratic groups or progressive groups, and I'd say 25 to 30% of my voters voted for Donald Trump, invariably the response was, what's wrong with those voters? Or a little skeptically, what's wrong with you, Bullock?

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. And there could be some overlap.

Steve Bullock:

You never know. Never, like how is it that if people are voting their economic, their healthcare, their education interests, they ought to be voting for Democrats. How is it that in a state like Iowa, a third of their counties went, Obama, Obama, Trump-

Ian Bremmer:

Trump.

Steve Bullock:

...and places where we should be winning, we are losing? So that was part of it. Just the concern of the further polarization in Democrats not getting that if we are a party of just the coasts, we're never going to be able to win and we'll never be able to govern. And then the other piece that really I guess hit me is that, look, I think everybody walks in the start of a new administration with some hopes that government can function in a constructive and positive way for people's lives. I mean, maybe if we'd started with infrastructure instead of repealing the Affordable Care Act, but it was not only, I guess what he's been doing as a president, but the way he's been governing. I mean the behavior that he's now normalizing. I do think it's a challenging time in this 243-year experiment called representative democracy, which should require anybody to stand up and say, we've got to get back to some norms and we could do a lot better if what we're going to do is pass on to the next generation something better than what we have.

Ian Bremmer:

Now you among the candidates know a lot of Trump voters a lot better. So given that, I mean, who are these people in Montana? What are they like? What excited them about Trump? Why are they still supporting him?

Steve Bullock:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think in part, like, there are folks all across this country that want to say a Trump voter is sort of monolithic, right, they're all exactly this. And I think that that's a mistake for us because I think that my view is Trump was the result, not the cause. Meaning when, boy, 60% Americans haven't had a pay increase in real terms in 40 years. When you look at it when I was growing up in the early 70s, 90% of 30-year-olds doing better than the parents were at age 30. Today it's only half. So a whole lot of folks just felt like the economy's not working for me, Washington DC is captured by dark money, or it's captured by, it doesn't represent my need. So why not blow up the system? And in some respects, I think that was a lot of the Trump voters saying that he said, he'll drain the swamp even though it's swampier today than it ever was.

Ian Bremmer:

Well, cabinet certainly is. Extraordinarily special interest, but that was one of his big messages, right? Drain the swamp.

Steve Bullock:

Yeah. I would get DC working for you. And he also said he'd have workers' backs along the way, even though most of the policy prescriptions that he has sure hasn't been helping those workers or those farmers or those factory workers. So I think in part, the Trump voters initially were saying that the economy and the political system isn't working for me so why not take a risk on somebody like this? And as we go on, we've seen, yeah, his favorabilities haven't been that high, I continue to think there's about 35% of this country that'd certainly be with him no matter what, but what we've got to do is focus on those folks that ought to be voting with us and bring them back. Because this is, in some ways, this is math, right?

Ian Bremmer:

There's another candidate that already has that, right? So you want to-

Steve Bullock:

Not math in the Yang terms, but math in that we've got to be able to win back places that we lost. The Michigan's, Wisconsin's, Pennsylvania if we're going to win this election.

Ian Bremmer:

Big issue dividing the country right now, gun control.

Steve Bullock:

Yeah.

Ian Bremmer:

You're in a red state, you're a governor, there's a lot of hunting, a lot of NRA card carrying Republican members. You want to get rid of assault weapons. How can you sell that to those people?

Steve Bullock:

Well, I think let's begin with some of the basics. I'll never forget, after the Vegas shooting, I'm sitting-

Ian Bremmer:

Hundreds and hundreds of people injured by one crazy guy.

Steve Bullock:

Yeah, that's right. And I'm sitting in my office and say, when we were asked to lower the flags, I'm like, I don't even know what to write in this proclamation. And a young coworker, staffer says, oh, we now have templates for mass shootings. I've lowered the flags nine times since Vegas, seven times since Parkland, a fourth of the times under President Obama and President Trump since I've been governor. So I think we're finally hitting this point that we know that we have to do more. You point out the NRA, and I'm a gun owner, I hunt. I'm like 40%-

Ian Bremmer:

Isn't it mandatory in Montana? To own a gun?

Steve Bullock:

We'd let you in even if you didn't. But it's actually 40% of the households in this country have a firearm in it. So it's not just a western thing, but I'm also a parent and a governor. If we could ever look at this as a public health issue, not as a political issue, we would know what to do. Universal background checks. The vast majority of NRA members, the vast majority of Republicans agree to that.

Ian Bremmer:

Do you talk to NRA in Montana? I mean, as an organization, do you talk to them in Washington? Have you had any, because all the things that you're saying sound abundantly sensible, but they are not moving for Congress.

Steve Bullock:

But that's exactly my point. Think about it. When I was growing up in Montana, the NRA, it was a gun safety, hunting, and shooting organization. I'll give you a 30 million reasons why zero progress has been made on even background checks, that's the $30 million that the NRA's invested in Trump's election. Think about right after Parkland he said immediately, we should probably have universal background checks.

Ian Bremmer:

I remember that. That's right.

President Trump:

Yes, Governor?

Steve Bullock:

President, again, thank you for having us. I approached this certainly as a governor, I approach it as a gun owner that 11-year-old son got his first deer-

President Trump:

That's right.

Steve Bullock:

...this past fall.

President Trump:

He's a good boy.

Steve Bullock:

I approached it as a victim, I had a nephew shot and killed an 11-year-old on a playground. Here is a moment where everybody's talking, where we can hopefully start saying, what could actually meaningfully impact this, not just for today, but for the future.

Steve Bullock:

He made one phone call to Wayne LaPierre and he walked backwards. Same thing after El Paso and Dayton. So I think that the only way that we make progress in some ways, see they're finally dissembling the NRA and figuring out where that money's actually coming from. Because if you look at gun safety issues, I think it is tied to the dark money world, this post-Citizens United world. But I also think that at some point, even gun owners have to stand up and say, we agree on a lot more than we disagree and nobody's trying to take everyone's guns away. And some of these what I would say are public health measures that we can all agree on, like universal background checks, ought to be a no-brainer at this point.

Ian Bremmer:

Now you talked just now about dark money and on your first-day to-do list, you say executive order making disclosure requirements or these corporations are not going to get government contracts. Why can that not be a piece of legislation that can't be overturned by the next president? Why does that have to be just an executive order?

Steve Bullock:

Well, on the one hand, it shouldn't be, right? So I was attorney general before I was governor and had actually brought the states together against Citizens United, wrote the brief that the majority states, even a bunch of Republican states, signed on to. Then after that didn't work out, brought the first case to the US Supreme Court trying to take apart Citizens United.

Steve Bullock:

Last summer, Montana led more than half the states in asking the court to address the narrow federal issues presented by Citizens United. Instead, the court reached a broad decision that questions more than a century of law in Montana and across the country. Yet the case and reactions on both sides of the political aisle have largely overlooked the decision's impact on the vast majority of elections in this country, those that are held at the state and the local levels.

Steve Bullock:

My legislature's almost two-thirds Republican. I got passed a bill that said 90 days out from an election, I don't care if you call yourself Americans for America for America, whatever it might be, you have to disclose every dollar you're spending. And we got that done in a bipartisan basis. So I'd love to see movement in Washington DC. I mean, look, before Citizens United, 2% of the outside spending was from groups that don't disclose their donors. Today it's over half. This isn't, to me, a fringe issue. When we talk about climate, when we talk about gun safety, when we talk about income inequality, when we talk about Costco can negotiate prescription drug prices, but it's illegal for the federal government to do it, I think so much of it does go back to the corrupting influence of money in our system. So the executive order, and I did the same thing in Montana, said, I can't tell you, you can't spend or contribute in my elections, but if you want a contract from the state, you just have to disclose that spending.

Ian Bremmer:

I'm wondering, now that you've been on the trail for a few months, have you gotten any pushback, either directly or indirectly, specifically on that issue?

Steve Bullock:

No. You know, I got pushback even when I was moving that legislation in Montana because it can impact folks on both the left and the right. So not direct pushback in that respect. I have 10 years in public office, I've never had somebody come up to me and say, I just don't think there's enough spending in our elections, right? When folks recognize that DC's not working for them, that we pay more for prescription drugs than any country in the world and we have nothing to show for it. Or that the Republican Party is the only major political party in the world now that won't acknowledge climate change is real. Or a generation of workers being replaced by independent contractors when union membership is half what it is in the 80s, people may not look at money and politics as the primary issue, but they see it's impacting everything else.

Ian Bremmer:

And I get that completely. I'm asking more about the lobbyists, the special interests, the people that matter for the election and reelection of so many people in office today and the United States is only getting bigger. I'm just wondering, have you heard anything? From them?

Steve Bullock:

Not... possibly because for my 10 years in public office, it's been a fight of my career and I think it is the challenge of our time. So perhaps those are the ones who will never talk to me anyway. And if so, that's okay, right?

Ian Bremmer:

I'm okay, he's way out there. We don't need to really worry about him.

Steve Bullock:

Yeah. And we've got to figure out a way that even more, that everybody feels like they have a stake in these elections. And I think a lot of people in this country just feel like they don't because they don't recognize that their voice, the corporation can't vote on election day, but they can.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, we haven't talked about trade yet and obviously big fight right now, most importantly between the US and China. Tariffs being raised, you've got a lot of farmers in Montana that have been hurt directly on this issue. You take a pretty tough line on China, but you are not in favor of Trump's policies. Tell me what you think needs to happen.

Steve Bullock:

Yeah. So I was in Rippey, Iowa, town of I think 400 people. Two stories and this was just at the grain elevator, so this wasn't a bunch of identified Democrats. One guy was saying, when Trump tweets, we literally lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. And another one, sixth generation farmer saying, I don't know if I want my son to go into this. And there's not a chance that these payments from the Department of Agriculture is going to make up for market share.

Ian Bremmer:

So the subsidies that Trump has been promising in return-

Steve Bullock:

No, that's right.

Ian Bremmer:

...they know that it's being lost?

Steve Bullock:

Yeah. So they get it. And I think that from my perspective, Trump took 'America First' into 'America Alone' in foreign trade and largely in foreign affairs. Look, we should be tough on China, what they did 25 years ago with steel, to credit cards, to microchips, now they're doing it to tech. But the way to get there, from my perspective, isn't just to say, let's use the blunt instrument of tariffs because that's not even hitting the tech side where we're having all the theft problems. I mean, the way to bring is to actually bring the global community with us, because the other thing that we've seen is we're ratcheting up this tariff war that they're actually lowering their tariffs to other countries.

Ian Bremmer:

So if the answer is not tariffs, if the answer is Steve as president, we're taking those tariffs off Chinese, yippie.

Steve Bullock:

Yeah.

Ian Bremmer:

Why are they changing the behavior?

Steve Bullock:

Well, I think sanctioning making limits on tech transfer and just saying, we can't do that necessarily, trying to turn around, because other countries that are impacted are traditional allies by the tech transfer as well pushing for opening up of their markets. I mean, you would know much better than I, in the 90s, you had what? A $500 billion economy that's now an $11 trillion economy because the pattern was always the same. Create a sanctuary market, invest state dollars into that industry actor, unleash that industry actor on the world. We've seen this time and time again. Yeah, you can seek WTO sanctions and the like, but saying the firm, especially from the tech transfer side, that this just doesn't work anymore.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, one other place I wanted to ask you about was on Cuba because you've come out publicly and say that you would like to end the boycott on Cuba. Not something I would've necessarily expected from the governor of Montana. What was behind that?

Steve Bullock:

Well, I think it was just that we were getting to a point of normalizing relationships under President Obama. And I'm not quite certain why it seems like the other Trump reflex is anything that his predecessor did, he just immediately wants to reverse. And for the liberalization and opportunities in Cuba, it did make sense to me to continue along that path.

Ian Bremmer:

Now we've covered a lot of policy, we've covered some non-policy. So first thing I have to ask you is if you're president, what's your Secret Service nickname?

Steve Bullock:

What should my Secret Service name be?

Ian Bremmer:

That's what I was asking you, yeah.

Steve Bullock:

That's what I'm asking you. Or someone who, I mean, you're a thoughtful, bright man, you could come up with that.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's the kind of thing that W would've done, right? He'd call you Stretch 'cause you're tall, long glass of cool water on the back there. Stretch, answer the question. Okay, you are wearing cowboy boots. Are those for me or do you always wear those on the trail?

Steve Bullock:

No, I often wear those. You do both on the trail and at home.

Ian Bremmer:

You do?

Steve Bullock:

These are actually alligator boots.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah, I noticed that. Were any live alligators hurt in the creation of it?

Steve Bullock:

Yes.

Ian Bremmer:

And you're proud of that, right?

Steve Bullock:

I'm kind of proud of it.

Ian Bremmer:

Well, I think that's why you're governor of a Red State. I think that's okay. Have you enjoyed yourself in this process?

Steve Bullock:

There are many times you enjoy yourself. First of all, you enjoy yourself when you're actually talking to people that want to believe that government can work and are engaged along the way. And these aren't the folks, these aren't the Ian's of the world, these aren't the all of the intelligentsia, it's just regular folks just saying, we can do better than this. That I've enjoyed. So my daughter's been too busy, but my 12-year-old son has been on some of these trails, him getting to see different things, to-

Ian Bremmer:

Does he understand what dad is doing?

Steve Bullock:

I think they all do, yeah. And they've all lived in this public eye their whole time.

Ian Bremmer:

Now the question I guess I have to ask-

Steve Bullock:

You do? You guess you have to.

Ian Bremmer:

I guess I have to, I think I have to. Okay. Poll numbers are not knocking the cover off the ball, I think we can say this.

Steve Bullock:

Not yet, yeah.

Ian Bremmer:

And stranger things have happened, but do you close the door? I mean, Hickenlooper was closing the door on Senate and now he's running and closing the door was a mistake.

Steve Bullock:

Yeah.

Ian Bremmer:

Are you closing the door on Senate?

Steve Bullock:

I closed the door long before I got into even this race for presidency and for a couple of different reasons. Look, I would like to turn around and we all look at, we should be also talking about places like Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota-

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah, but you can't run in those places.

Steve Bullock:

But we can no longer win in those places.

Ian Bremmer:

Also true.

Steve Bullock:

And if we actually want to win places like that, we ought to have someone at the top of the ticket that can actually help in red and purple place.

Ian Bremmer:

And let's assume that we get that person, but it isn't Steve.

Steve Bullock:

Oh, let's see who else actually won in a red or purple state.

Ian Bremmer:

No, I get it. I'm just saying, I mean, but you are closing the door, you're closing the door?

Steve Bullock:

Closing the door and I'll do everything possible to make sure that we have a nominee that can actually win.

Ian Bremmer:

Governor Steve Bullock.

Steve Bullock:

Thanks for having me.

Ian Bremmer:

Great to be with you.

Steve Bullock:

Great to be with you as well.

Ian Bremmer:

That's our show this week. We'll be right back here next week same place, same time unless you're watching on social media, in which case it's wherever you happen to be. Don't miss it. In the meantime, check us out at gzeromedia.com.

Announcer:

The GZERO World is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic a private bank and wealth management company. Imagine a bank without teller lines, where your banker knows your name, and its most prized currency is extraordinary client service. Hear directly from First Republic's clients by visiting firstrepublic.com.