Energy Prices Major Factor in Democrats' Election Night Success, Gov. Inslee Says

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00:00Let's start with the elections that we had yesterday.

00:03I'm curious how you react broadly to the way the Democrats perform.

00:07Well, it was a smashing rejection of Donald Trump and his

00:11absolutely insane policies on multiple fronts.

00:14I tend to want to focus on what all of our candidates did

00:19to attack the Trump policies that are giving us higher electrical rates.

00:23In the governor's races, they both in Virginia and New Jersey,

00:27they emphasize clean energy that can give us cheaper electricity, cleaner,

00:31and fight climate change at the same time.

00:33Same thing in Georgia, the two public utilities races.

00:37These were smashing victories.

00:38Look, when you get these double-digit victories,

00:40it means that people have had it with Donald Trump's crazy energy policies.

00:44They're costing us too much money.

00:46There's too much pollution.

00:47They don't like the corruption with the fossil fuel industry.

00:49I want to stick with this because you saw candidates winning,

00:52Democratic candidates winning in places that are or have been historically red.

00:56What do you make of that?

00:57Just simply a repudiation or is something else at play?

01:00Well, there's two things.

01:00First, it's a repudiation.

01:02Trump came in saying, I'm going to eliminate inflation in the first four hours, right?

01:07Well, in fact, he's become not only has it not tamed inflation, it's still going up,

01:11but he's made it worse.

01:13And Americans are common sense, smart enough to know

01:16that the corrupt bargain he made with the coal companies, they give me like a billion dollars.

01:20And he said, I'm going to get rid of your competitors, solar, wind, batteries.

01:25And now he's trying to do that.

01:27Well, what do you get?

01:28You get higher electrical prices.

01:30And Americans understand that.

01:31They understand getting ripped off.

01:33And they're being ripped off by the Trump policy.

01:35But number two, look, we got candidates with good plans,

01:38good plans to create jobs in their districts around building these new technologies of clean

01:44cars and clean batteries and solar and wind and efficiency in your house.

01:48This is a good deal for Americans.

01:50And that's what they're responding to.

01:52You, of course, ran for president, had your eye on the country as a whole.

01:56What do you make of Democrats messaging as it comes to climate and just more broadly at this moment in

02:01time?

02:01Well, I don't think you could be more pleased with it because the ultimate judge of that is not me.

02:05It's the American people.

02:06And they spoke last night.

02:07Look, this was a nationwide thumping of the Trumpers and the cult that is following them.

02:13And the people who are running against my friends, the Democrats last night in New Jersey,

02:17in Virginia, in Georgia, were the people who wanted to just follow him over the cliff

02:23of giving us higher electrical prices.

02:26And that was rejected big time.

02:27So it's a good day to be a Democrat.

02:30Look forward to next November.

02:31And hopefully we can restore some sanity in the US House of Representatives.

02:35By gum, we need it.

02:36I want to ask you about the growth of data centers, buffeting AI, this AI revolution,

02:42and how you're feeling about the degree to which politicians are reckoning with their

02:47need to regulate that more.

02:49Is it happening?

02:50What's your counsel to elected officials when it comes to doing that in a sustainable way?

02:55Well, I think the Democrats are grappling with it because the Democrats across the country are

03:00saying, look, we need to have more energy sources.

03:03We need the energy sources that are less expensive.

03:07Solar and wind now is 93% of the new energy because it's cheaper than coal.

03:12It's more cleaner and it's more abundant to some degree.

03:15So Democrats are arguing, look, with the increasing demands for energy,

03:19data centers and growth of our economy, we need more energy sources.

03:23Look what's happening.

03:24The President of the United States is trying to deny two Americans access to the cheapest,

03:30cleanest energy in America, which is solar energy, wind energy, battery company.

03:35He's going around the country trying to blow up these sources of energy.

03:38They're the cheapest ones.

03:40That's why our electrical prices are going up.

03:43So even without data centers, we would need more energy, but with them doubly so.

03:48And I'm proud of the Democrats who have stood up and said, let's just have common sense and energy,

03:52not ideology, not corruption.

03:54That means let's take the cheapest at solar and wind right now.

03:57How do you see that playing out?

03:59So you have a federal government that hasn't just stepped back from climate policy and clean energy

04:04policy, but it's taken a pretty aggressive tack toward preventing it from happening.

04:07And you see this kind of limbo that a lot of states are in.

04:09I think of Rhode Island with wind farms.

04:11Wondering sort of how all it plays out.

04:13How do you see it playing out?

04:14Well, the good news is this is the United States of America.

04:18And each states have the capability of building our clean energy economy.

04:22We're doing that.

04:23I stood up a group called the U.S. Climate Alliance seven years ago during the first Trump

04:28rodeo.

04:29And now those 24 states are working together in their own states using their own policies,

04:34their own legislatures, their own governors to build clean energy.

04:38So, for instance, in my state, we have the most aggressive cap and invest bill.

04:43And Trump could not stop us from doing that.

04:45And the voters affirmed it 62 to 38 last November and affirmed the concept all across

04:52America last night.

04:54So he really cannot stop the states from moving forward.

04:57He's a speed bump.

04:58He's an annoying one.

04:59But we're coming back.

05:00It's a good day to be a Democrat and an American.

05:03We see a lot of these subnational leaders, as they're called, mayors,

05:06governors who are here now.

05:08Of course, there is no high-level delegation from the United States here.

05:12What is lost as you see it by not having federal representation here at this conference?

05:17Well, we do have high-level representation.

05:18We have governors from Wisconsin and New Mexico where they're going jobs like crazy.

05:23And, you know, the big issue I have is we don't consider states as subnationals.

05:28We consider them as supernationals.

05:31And the reason they're supernationals is they can move faster than the federal government.

05:35And certainly that is what's happening in our country right now,

05:38with Trump wanting to go in reverse on clean energy.

05:41He wants to go reverse to have dirty, more polluting industry.

05:44He wants to go reverse and having more expensive electricity.

05:48We're going forward because those supernationals have the ability

05:52to control their own destiny and their own laws and really cannot be stopped.

05:55So my state, he's slowed down a little bit.

05:57He's canceled a few of the projects because he's canceling them in blue states.

06:01But we have a Climate Commitment Act.

06:02We have 100% clean electrical bill.

06:04We have a low carbon fuel standard.

06:06We have the best building codes in America.

06:08We're getting people heat pumps and insulation.

06:10And they love it because I talked to this one woman.

06:13She was an apple picker in Toppenish.

06:16And she said, I love getting my utility bill now every month because it's almost zero.

06:21And he said, it's almost like Christmas in August.

06:23And we're doing that across the country.

06:25So I'd say we got the message.

06:27Clean energy is a winning message.

06:29My last question is one about semantics.

06:31And I wonder, as you look ahead to 2026 and 2028,

06:34is the word climate one that's a fraught word for a lot of candidates?

06:37Are they talking about climate-related issues in a different way and avoiding using that term?

06:42Is the way that we talk about these issues changing as a result of

06:45who's in the White House or who's in power in Washington?

06:47Well, certainly it wasn't last night across America in New Jersey and Georgia and Virginia,

06:52because climate is another word for clean energy.

06:55They're almost interchangeable.

06:57Because when you get cheaper clean energy, you're also dealing with climate change.

07:01And when you're concerned about the fact that forest fires are burning down our cities

07:05and floods are killing children in Texas.

07:08And huge hurricanes are destroying Jamaica.

07:11When you're concerned about those things,

07:13the answer is to do cheaper, cleaner, available energy.

07:16So they're intertwined.

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