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00:00Republican Spencer Cox served as chair of the National Governors Association, and he's the author of a new book, Off
00:05-Ramp, How to Be a Peacemaker in the Age of Contempt.
00:08Governor, it's very nice to see you again, although, frankly, I do miss the very excellent hat you wore last
00:12time you joined us.
00:13Down at the stockyards.
00:14Down at the stockyards.
00:15Yes.
00:15But I do understand it may not have fit in the studio today.
00:18I want to start on the news that we were just discussing, which is the president has at least nominally
00:24banned three major outlets from the White House.
00:26MSNBC, CNN, and Politico said it's a free press ban.
00:30If you're talking about civility and political discourse, what role does the press play in that conversation?
00:38Well, certainly the press plays a very important role, and we have a First Amendment for a reason.
00:43It's something I believe in.
00:46And yet, I think the press has played a role in some of the divisiveness that we've seen in our
00:51country over the past decade, for sure.
00:55Look, it's a tough business, as you know.
00:57And just like politicians, the conflict entrepreneurs out there, the algorithmic-driven nature of our politics and our entertainment and,
01:07quite frankly, our news, to make money, you've got to get eyeballs.
01:10And it's much easier to get people addicted to outrage and to get the clicks.
01:16You've got to say the more extreme things.
01:18And that type of reporting can certainly lead to a bigger divide in our country.
01:25Also, it's easier than ever to just surround yourself with media voices that you want to hear.
01:31I don't have to listen to anybody on the other side of the aisle if I never want to.
01:35There's plenty of news that just makes me feel better about my own views of the world.
01:40Yes, we have this conversation.
01:41It occurs to me we should set some definitional ground rules here.
01:44So when we talk about civility, how do you define the term?
01:46What should we be aspiring for here when it comes to civility?
01:51Yeah, well, I actually don't like the term civility very much, only because the way it's defined today in our
01:57country is kind of this milquetoast idea that we all just need to go along to get along, kind of
02:01a kumbaya version.
02:02And while I do believe we need to be nicer to each other, that's not what I'm arguing for.
02:07I actually believe we need more disagreement, but we need better disagreement.
02:12We need healthier conflict.
02:14I'm not asking anyone to compromise their values or their strongly held principles.
02:19What I am asking people to do is to disagree without the contempt.
02:25And contempt is this idea that I don't just disagree with you, but I despise you, that you're beneath me,
02:31that half the country is just evil and irredeemable.
02:34And I don't believe that, and it's terrible for our politics and for our souls.
02:41And so this idea that we should be able to debate the actual issues and treat our opponents with dignity
02:47and respect has been core to our values for 250 years.
02:51And if we're going to avoid more political violence, we've got to get back on track.
02:55I mean, but how do you do that when, do you think the leader of your party, who you mentioned
03:01the word evil, he uses that word quite a bit, would you prefer to see more constructive rhetoric coming out
03:06of the White House?
03:08Yeah, well, he and I have had these conversations.
03:11It's no secret that I didn't support him in 2016 or 2020.
03:15And it was actually after an attempted assassination on his life that I wrote him a long letter about this
03:21very thing.
03:23And we've had these conversations.
03:25It's an area where we have disagreement.
03:28And so, yeah, I would love to see more constructive dialogue.
03:33I actually think it's good for my party.
03:36The polling right now is really fascinating, and it's been changing over the past 10 years.
03:41Americans are so tired right now.
03:43There's an exhausted majority.
03:4570% of Americans hate what's happening in politics right now.
03:48And I truly believe that there is a market failure in both parties, frankly.
03:54And the first party to figure this out is going to do very, very well.
03:58Certainly, I hope it's my party, but neither party seems very interested in having this type of discussion right now,
04:05even though the American people desperately want it.
04:08You used the phrase conflict entrepreneur, and I haven't spoken with the president.
04:11You have, but I do see him as somebody who relishes conflict, likes to see it.
04:15And I don't necessarily mean that pejoratively.
04:16I think that's just kind of the way that he's operated in business and government as well.
04:20And it makes me wonder, as you were writing this book, sort of how you regard 2028 and what comes
04:25after it.
04:26Is this a book for this time?
04:28Do you think that things will become notionally easier in our politics when, as Christina points out, the leader of
04:33the Republican Party, the president of the United States, is replaced by somebody who may take a different tack, a
04:37different position when it comes to wanting to see her galvanizing the conflict that he has in the White House?
04:44Yeah, so I try to make the case, and in fact, we've been working with researchers to show, again, that
04:50there is a different way to win an election in this country.
04:55Certainly, negative advertising has worked.
04:57It's worked for a long time.
04:58We've been able to show, again, with research, that positive campaigning can actually work and that people will support candidates
05:07who take a different tack there and try to bring people together to unify.
05:12I can tell you that something is happening as I cross the country and I have these conversations like we're
05:18having right now with Americans.
05:20They're so hungry for something different.
05:23Now, I will say that in 2012, my party nominated one of the nicest guys in the world, Mitt Romney,
05:30and the opposition made him out to be an evil, calculating despot, and that was just not the case.
05:39And I think President Trump saw that and said, well, I can do this.
05:43I can do this better than anybody else.
05:46And he's been very successful with it.
05:47But just like everything else in politics, I think that pendulums swing, and right now we're seeing Americans that are
05:55looking for something a little different.
05:58And I think we'll see in 28 that maybe several candidates and hopefully some Republican candidates will take a different
06:06tack.
06:07You talk a lot in your book about some of the top-down things you'd like to see, but in
06:12talking to voters and even friends, it seems like there also has to be a bit of buy-in from
06:17the base as well.
06:18Because one of the things that I find very hard to navigate, even as a reporter talking to some of
06:22these folks, is what I call kind of stan culture in politics, right?
06:25It's like trying to talk to a Swifty and say, maybe this wasn't her best album.
06:29Maybe this wasn't our best policy.
06:32And it's just not a conversation they're willing to have because it's a loyalty test.
06:36Do you think demanding loyalty from voters does the party a disservice?
06:41Well, loyalty has always been an important part of politics.
06:45And we can demand it all we want.
06:48But certainly I make the case that every voter, every person has agency.
06:54And we actually get to decide.
06:56We get the type of politics we deserve.
06:58We always have.
07:00And so if we want something different, then we, the people, have to be a little different.
07:05One of the most concerning things that I write about in the book is if you go back, you know,
07:1010, 15 years, only about 5% of Americans had lost a close personal friend or a family member to
07:17politics.
07:18That number has more than quadrupled over the past 10 years.
07:23Far too many Americans have given up on a friendship or a family member because of politics.
07:28And that is far more damaging, I think, than anything our political leaders are doing.
07:35These are the choices that we are making.
07:37And we have some real important practical tips in there about how to repair those relationships, how to have a
07:44conversation with someone who disagrees with you.
07:47Maybe to get offline, I think that's the most important thing, get off the algorithms, go out, touch grass, talk
07:54to normal Americans about what's happening and what they're worried about in their lives.
07:59And what you'll find is it's not worth giving up friendships or family members to any political leader, not to
08:07me, not to a president.
08:09We're just not worth it, you guys.
08:10Taylor Swift might be worth it for some people, but definitely not politicians.
08:14Yeah, I'm going to take this in kind of a strange direction, perhaps.
08:16We're having this conversation now about AI and advances that we're seeing in technology.
08:20And there's kind of a similar distance that's emerging between those of us who maybe have some technical facility but
08:26don't really understand AI at a granular level, don't know where all of this is headed.
08:30And I think that's what we kind of see in stark relief today.
08:32What we've seen over the course of this last week is some of the fear being manifest by having kind
08:35of a limited understanding of where we are, where things are going, where they might lead, and what that might
08:39mean for humanity more broadly.
08:42I use that preamble just to ask you sort of about the wider applicability of this book.
08:46I mean, we're talking about political polarization.
08:48But what about that, just kind of the other gaps that we see in our society today that have grown
08:52wider and wider?
08:53And I think of the one just between, you know, again, the high-tech sector and the rest of us
08:58who are kind of operating in this world.
08:59You brought up algorithms just a minute ago.
09:01Navigating a world where we might not just know all of the parameters of it in the way that a
09:04select few do.
09:06Yeah, well, certainly there's a fear that is out there.
09:09There's this, we feel unsettled right now.
09:13I think there's a lack of rootedness.
09:16You know, I used to, when I was in college, we were taught that all politics is local.
09:20And now certainly it's the opposite.
09:22All politics is national.
09:23And that's very unhealthy when you have this kind of outside locus of control.
09:28A psychologist will tell you that that leads to really terrible mental health and a lot of anger where you
09:34feel like you can't control anything.
09:36It's really important that we get back to local, that we start to care more about our community, about our
09:43neighbors, about our families, about the institutions closest to us, our faith, and less about what's happening at the national
09:50level.
09:50That will give us that sense of rootedness that we need.
09:53It also turns out that there's a huge perception gap that if you interview 1,000 Republicans and 1,000
09:59Democrats on the 20 most contentious issues, we're really about this far apart.
10:04But this perception gap is deeply problematic.
10:07If you ask Republicans what Democrats believe, you ask Democrats what Republicans believe, we're a mile apart.
10:12And so that leads to a lot of distrust with each other, even though when we actually sit down and
10:19have the conversations with our neighbors who we think are very different than us, they're not Hassan Piker.
10:25They're not Tucker Carlson.
10:27They're just like us.
10:28And that's what I'm really hoping we can do more of.
10:33Now, on the AI issue particularly, it's interesting because I think the data center backlash really isn't a backlash against
10:41the data center itself.
10:42It's about all of these insecurities we feel towards this new technology that we frankly didn't ask for and that
10:49may be coming for our jobs or our kids.
10:52And this is one area where there actually is a tremendous amount of bipartisan agreement.
10:57About 90 percent of Americans are concerned about AI and data centers and what the future holds.
11:03And I actually think this could be a moment.
11:06It turns out that the people who know the least about it are scared about it.
11:09And the people who know the most about it are also fearful about it.
11:12A chance for us to maybe come together and work on a really tough and potentially existential issue together as
11:20Americans, both Republicans and Democrats.
11:22Governor, before we let you go, I do want to ask you the same question we asked Senator Chris Coons
11:26last week.
11:27And that is, do you think Congress, do you think legislators understand AI well enough to regulate it?
11:35I absolutely do not think they understand AI enough to regulate it.
11:41And that concerns me as well.
11:43But look, we always get presented with these false choices and we've certainly seen it this week.
11:47It's either we don't do anything at all or we have complete regulatory capture with a moat around these companies
11:55to protect the big guys and not let anybody in.
11:58Which is ridiculous to any thoughtful human being out there that those are our two choices.
12:03I can tell you what we've done in Utah.
12:05We hired one of the foremost experts on AI from a university here in our state.
12:11And we created an AI policy lab where these experts and his team work with companies who come in with
12:17new products, AI chatbots for mental health, AI chatbots for kids.
12:23We're working with AI in the medical field as well.
12:27And we actually have experts that sit down, look at what these companies are doing, work closely with them.
12:33Not for regulatory capture purposes, but just so they can then help us in government put appropriate guardrails around to
12:40protect the health and safety of Utahns without slowing down companies, without making them unable to develop the products that
12:50they're interested in.
12:51And it's been wildly popular, wildly popular with the citizens of Utah, wildly popular with legislators, and wildly popular with
12:58the companies that are developing these new tools because they also don't want to go out and kill a bunch
13:02of people.
13:02Governor, we've got to go. I'm sorry to cut you off.
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