club of washington, d.c. judy: for the economic club. everyone want to welcome the governors again? [applause] judy: the reason this has come about in large part is because the national governors association is meeting in washington this week. governor cost, you are the chair of the governors association this year. and your initiative you have been putting a lot of focus on is called disagree better. i want to ask the two of you, what does that mean? let me start by thanking everyone for being here. it is an honor. i'm excited to be with my friend, wes moore.

i am in cycle, i'm up for reelection. me just saying my good friend wes moore is a testament of the courage in this type of electoral cycle. and i mean that a little tongue-in-cheek, but that is the issue that really got my attention. as chair of the national governors association, we get to do an initiative every year. i look back at some of my predecessors, governor hogan focused on infrastructure. that gives you an idea of education initiatives. what we can do to reduce the cost of health care, energy policy. we just had the realization that we can accomplish the problems facing our nation today if we all hate each other.

when we look at what we thought was the single most pressing problem in our country, it was the contempt we feel for our fellow americans. could we try something around that? can we put an initiative together where the last adults in the room, governor, could show that there's a better way to do this. not just some new way, but the way we used to do it in the u.s. that we can actually disagree. this is really important. not just about being nice to each other, although we desperately need more of that. it is relearning how to disagree the right way. how to have debate, how to stay true to your principles. without demeaning and carrying apart the other site. finding common ground, and where

we can meet each other to solve problems. and we have no idea how we were seen. but there was an exhaustive majority and it has been well received. >> i believe deeply that you can't claim to love the country if you hate half the people in it. it does not make sense. and i think that -- one, why i agree is because my good friend. when i first was inaugurated, we went down to baby governor school for all the new governors. when i got back, my mom asked me what grade i got. >> he got an a. >> but one of the first people who came and embraced me and helped me and has consistently

reached out and asked how things are going is the republican governor of utah, governor coxe. he has been a real friend. i think of what it means, i don't come from a political family or political background. i was a combat veteran with the 82nd airborne, i ran a small business in maryland and one of the largest poverty funding organizations in this country. i had been an elected for 13 months. the thing i know is this whole divisive, left to right, what party you are a part of, i did not come back in that culture. i was not raised in that culture. i had to convince members of my family to vote for me. [laughter] but it was not because i'm not very cool with my family. it is because they are members of my family who had never voted. so the idea we are supposed to hate somebody because of their political affiliation is not

something i understood. it is not something i came up in. i have no desire in learning that. i have the idea if we are going to get stuff done, it means understanding and getting back to the basic humanity and keep that as the northstar. >> what do you think is the bottom of this polarization? >> you have been trying to chronicle that for several months. i think both of us have a lot of answers about what is at the bottom of it. i could spend all afternoon on this. let me try and be concise. this started a few decades ago, the early 1990's is when we started to see the division happen in congress. certain politicians had figured out how to take advantage of

dividing us to help themselves using fear and anger. it is motivating. we both love sports. there are basketball coaches who inspire you to run through a wall to do anything for them. and there are coaches who literally choke you. out of fear, may he rest in peace -- [laughter] but out of fear, and fear can be motivated. so there is that piece. it has done the exact opposite, at a time when -- i can spend all day talking about loneliness in america, dr. putman bowling alone the book and starting to understand as americans, we are losing the community and institutions that have brought us together. we are less religious than ever

before. if we go back, i can give you one. what america looked like then, and all of these institutions like religion and others that brought us together are all falling apart. we are lonely, wired for connection, and now we don't have it. we are finding it in unhealthy places. that is where we are and what we are doing now. i want to go back to something wes said, nothing more american than hating our fellow americans. we never defined ourselves by our political parties growing up. i did not know who the republicans were in my town, who the democrats were in my congregation. that was like my 20th thing or

30th you would rank yourself as. utah jazz fans, patriots fans, jets fans, whatever. we were dads, we were mormons. that was so hard on the list. that is crazy and so unhealthy in a pluralistic society like ours. if that is how we see ourselves first and foremost, we are sincerely in trouble. i'm grateful to find people. that is how it kind of came together. we have to get back to redefining ourselves. governor moore, from where you sit, what is going on that is

driving this harsh partisanship? i think a lot of it is going on. but people are opting out. they are opting into their own social corners. there is news not to be educated, but validated. they are opting out of having a measure of societal connection. it is interesting, because when we first came on board, i remember during my first inaugural -- during my first state of the state, i talked about the idea that i want maryland to be the state that serves. i want us to be the state that serves because i knew, and why we pushed our first legislative session, one of the things we got done is maryland is now the first state in this country that has a service year option for all of our high school graduates. all of our high school graduates now have a chance to get a year

of service to the state of maryland. they can serve seniors, veterans, chinese citizens, it is their choice. you find the thing that makes your heart beat faster. but there is a couple big reasons why i prioritized it. i'm a big believer in experiential learning. giving you something to find a way to do it. big believer in financial cushions and earn financial cushions and that service is not something people should do because -- there should be a financial incentive to do it. it is fantastic for workforce training. it is because service is sticky. those who serve together generally stay together. many of them were not

marylanders. many of them were not democrats. but they literally came from their homes and where they live to come and join us on my behalf and we are knocking on doors and saying let me tell you about the guys i served with. so i believe with this political divisiveness and vitriol that service will save us. and that is why we want to make our safe estate -- it is a core way of being able to heal the divide. we are estate that gets to know each other again. we will be a state willing to compete together and ready to win. judy: we are here at the economic club of washington. there are so many questions i have for the two of you. but i do want to start with a question about the economy. a few blocks from here, congress is deadlocked over the budget. we are a few weeks away from what could be -- and i will start with governor moore, a government shutdown because they cannot come to an agreement over

spending. what would the impact of that be? gov. moore: it would be severe on us. we are talking about a state that has the third highest level of federal jobs and workforce in the state of maryland. their jurisdictions in our state, prince georges county, one of the largest are sickened -- jurisdictions, have some form of connection to the federal government. it is disastrous and avoidable. judy: what we have seen, there was a budget deal last year, it did not hold. a number of house republicans said we want deeper cuts, this is not enough. and here we are. how do you see it? >> the same way. it is devastating for every state. and all of us as americans. and we should all be completely embarrassed by the fact that --

this is the only thing they're supposed to do. the one thing that they are there to do. and this is what happens. going back to what we talked about earlier, this divisiveness and corrosive this -- corrosiv ness. medianews helps to elevate the extreme voices. we've got the incentive structure all wrong in america. we are elevating the loudest voices in the room. what is happening is politics is now full of just performers. not people who want to solve a problem. speaking of congress. the thing about governors is we still have to do stuff. potholes are not partisan. they are supposed to do stuff, but they are not. and when we elevate performers who have no incentive to accomplish anything -- i still use the traditional

right, left framing. it is shorthand for so many things. in my more lucid moments, i get rid of those terms and look at builders and destroyers. there are builders on the right, the left, and middle, and destroyers on the right, left, and middle. but who are the people that are building trying to create something so easy to tear down? now we have a congress full of people that are good at tearing things down but terrible at building anything. judy: is it your sense people are even listening to each other on questions as fundamental as this in congress? gov. moore: it is difficult to see any evidence of that. and governor cox is right. the challenge is we don't have that luxury. every single year, we have to balance our budget. every single year, the budget i present to the legislature is a budget that is balanced by constitutional mandates.

and what is really frustrating about it is there are things on the state level we can fundamentally do to get our economic engines going. when i first took office, maryland was ranked 47th and economic momentum in the country. the past five years, our economy has grown by 2%. the average economy is 7.5%. unemployment rate was 43rd. one of my first priorities was we have to get the economy going. we have to have more people entering into the economy, investing in industries of the future, we have to be deliberate how we are utilizing our balance sheet. looking at where we are, we have jumped 20 slots in economic momentum, one of the fastest growing in the entire country. for the past five months, we have the lowest unemployment rate in america. we have an economy that is actually moving. now we are sitting there how to -- having debates about

government shutdowns. having debates because of the consequences of broken border policies because there is no governor in charge of immigration. that is why this becomes so frustrating and why that level of engagement, the level of thoughtfulness governors have to bring into this work. there are consequences to dysfunction. gov. cox: as the best economy in the last 10 years -- [laughter] the historic supremacy, i will acknowledge that. because this is really important. we have always felt and you are feeling it now, we are a race car with a parachute on the back. when they cannot do simple stuff like this -- >> you think he can have influence? >> and we have influence question mark >> can you as a governor have an influence on

this particular impact? >> if i could, we would fix it a long time ago. you are talking to people who are not interested in fixing the problem. there are great people in congress. i don't mean to disparage all of them. it is 99% of congress that gives the other 1% a really bad name. [laughter] it is really hard when they are not interested in listening to everyone. i would push on that only a little bit by saying i do think it is important to not underestimate the voices governors do have in this. and the collective voice governors can speak on and why it becomes so important. people understand governors are closest to the people. the people closest to the challenges are often times

closer to the solutions. i think the collective voice of governors that they should have on this does matter. while i applaud the work of the nga and why we are here during this moment, i do think it is important for people in congress to hear a collective voice from people who are directly responsible and touching people. it is very appropriate and very important that when so much is being decided, governors are coming together and saying we have a concerted voice. i would say governor murphy when i was vice chair and -- who is my vice chair, we weighed in on behalf of the national governors association on the budget negotiations and so many other policies. >> you brought up immigration. there has been an unprecedented surge of migrants coming across

the southern border. republicans are saying the border is out of control, they have turned it into a huge issue. is that criticism accurate? >> very accurate. and it is remarkably frustrating. it is the governors who and up taking all the brunt. they take on the responsibility of making sure people are safe and housed, and clothed. without enough supports, and without enough policy, that can help to come over the long-term solution -- i signed a letter with eight other governors asking congress to be able to move on budgetary allocation coming towards the state, but also coming up with a barter policy that is functional. it does have real implications. because the responsible governors -- our habit will not be let's ship them off to other

governors. responsible governors do not do that. >> >> speaking of border policy, governor cox, someone you know, senator james lankford, longtime conservative, state of oklahoma, helped lead a bipartisan effort to come up with a proposal that would be acceptable to both sides. it involves getting the president the authority to cut off all immigration, makes it hard to -- harder to grant legal asylum. what happens now? when something led by someone at the heart of conservative thinking doesn't work -- gov. cox: it is incredibly frustrating. i think this is a very complicated issue when we try to several fight it. i think both sides do this a little too much. there is so much more the president could be doing right now. and there is so much congress needs to do.

and congress has kicked the can down the road 40 years and continues to do so. even that one. it is illustrative of how broken congress is right now. i understand the way it happened and who's responsible for doing the negotiation. but they happened behind closed doors. 99% of congress never saw that law until it was presented to them. i don't know how you do it in your state, but i'm sure it is not like that. it is not in my state. you're supposed to negotiate, let people offer amendments, go through a process. that did not happen at all. people felt left out of that process. and republicans bolted. there has to be a fix, and we have to have people willing to do that. my side probably should have stayed at the table and done that. but last night, you have three

candidates for senator, democrats in california saying they would not have supported the bill as well. i don't know the answer, i just know we are not getting any answers by the way they are doing it now. judy: part of what we are talking about is the tone. you disagree on a number of issues, but you are able to have a conversation, able to talk about it. but there are many examples i could cite -- just recently, the senator from the state of utah said the democrats hate the bill of rights. for her part, democratic congress woman alexandria ocasio-cortez was talking about immigration. she said republicans want to rollback child labor laws. this is just two examples of thousands of others. how do you inject civil conversations, discussions, at a

time like this? >> i care about getting things done. i know performative, emotive splurges is not how you do it. i think about our first session. where we introduced 10 bills in our first legislative session. we went 10-10. we went 10-10 bipartisan. democratic and republican supports on everything the bill we introduced. now on our second mudslide dislike of session and knock on wood we are feeling pretty good that we will be able to bring the ideas of democrats and republicans on every single bill that we are going to pass baby it matters because i think they see that there is a real partner in this work. people say how did you do it? i said i actually did outreach.

i actually went to their districts, i went to talk to them, i talked with their families, talked to their constituents, and then made argument as to why fighting child poverty is not a democratic issue. it is an issue hitting their districts, too. why making sure we have the most aggressive housing package into generations in our state, it was not because it would only impact democratic areas. the housing shortage taking place in the state of maryland is affecting urban, rural, and suburban parts of the state. it comes down to do you actually want to get something done? do you want to accomplish something? or do you benefit from the dysfunction? for the people that actually want to get things done, because we want to take this moment seriously, these roles and responsibilities seriously that we are in, you have to come up with a way of actually engaging people instead of demonizing them. because you are not going to get

a different type of conclusion. judy: do enough people want to get it done, what do you do about that civil phone? -- tone? gov. cox: there are so many great things that governor moore just said that i want to underscore. he is talking about persuasion, this idea that we can actually still persuade people to work on a problem. we have gotten so far away from persuasion in both political parties. when you do that -- we spend a tremendous moan of time working with experts on polarization, what is actually happening in our country today? there are different types of polarization. it turns out we are not as polarized as we think we are. i know that sounds weird. we just spent a half hour telling you how polarized we are and now i am telling you we are not. if you actually interview republicans and democrats on certain issues like immigration or abortion -- you name the

issue -- i will show you polling that shows the median republican and median democrat are not that far apart in what they actually believe. but the problem is that we think we are that far apart. we think we are this far apart. we have politicians who win by making us think we are this far apart. i have to convince you all that governor moore hates the constitution and hates our country. or governor moore has to convince people that governor cox hates immigrants and hates the environment. if we can do that, it is so much easier to get our base to just fall in line and not listen to the other side. when none of that is true. i think that is incredibly dangerous.

we know it is dangerous because the experts have told us, when you think the other side is willing to violate democratic norms, or engage in illegal or even violent behavior, then you become much more permissive with your side. you are much more willing to let your side violate democratic norms and engage in even violent behavior, because that is what it will take to say what is so important to us. there is a great study at stanford where they ran these different experiments, including an ad that i did with my democratic opponent a couple years ago, engaged 30,000 people, and when you saw the other side was not as far apart as you think they are, your willingness to engage in violent behavior or violate democratic norms goes way down. i do think there is still an

exhaustive majority. 75% of americans hate what is happening in politics right now. the exhaustive majority. by the way, they hate both candidates for president, don't want either of them to run for president but here we are. it is leading us down this path that is very dangerous. but if you can have people like governor moore and others who are willing to stand up and say i disagree on abortion, i disagree passionately on abortion with governor cox, but i don't hate governor cox. i don't think governor cox is a bad guy. we are going to figure out how to work through this. that that brings us back to the table. you have to have that in a pluralistic society to survive. judy: you are getting to what i wanted to ask you, raising a couple of difficult issues like abortion. what would be an example of a civil, productive discussion, debate about abortion? what would even sound like?

i am not even asking you to go through the details of your thinking but what would it even look like? gov. cox: a couple ways this could go. one, we could debate when life starts. those debates have been going on for a long time. we know we are probably going to end up at a different place on that. are there some areas will be could find agreement? i am just positing this because we have not had this debate. governor polis and i have had this debate. we realize there are some areas we could focus on. could we focus on making abortion as rare as possible? most pro-abortion people also believe that abortion is not a great thing. they would prefer that it didn't happen. could we agree on six education or contraception availability, something like that? could we do more to help single moms and babies?

if we care about life, we should care about all life, not just until it is born. can we focus on those areas? we know we are never going to agree on this piece, but could we agree on that piece? again, that is an area for rational debate, rational problem-solving. judy: is it possible to have, in that highly charged subject, a civil debate? gov. moore: it is. i think there is a difference between having a civil debate but also saying we are all going to come to the same end conclusion. we might not come to the same conclusion. for example, i think about the work that we did last year. yes, we passed legislation that focused on things like privacy and protections of people both performing, patients and

providers of abortion. this year, we helped to lead an initiative where reproductive rights will be on the ballot for the state of maryland to put it in our constitution. you know my belief. abortion and reproductive rights, that is health care. that is women's health care. i and not going to take away a woman's right to her health care. i also know the ability to focus on things like education and prevention, like we did working with upstream. part of knowing about reproductive health needs knowing that women and girls are getting the education they need about family planning and that type of thing. even if we end up at a different conclusion, there is, how can you have a respectful debate, disagreement without it turning vitriolic. judy: another issue, guns, crime. governor moore, i will start with you. what would a civil discussion,

productive discussion look like even on guns? gov. moore: this is, again, a very challenging and personal issue for me. i am a person who, from the time i was 17 years old, that is when i joined the united states army. i served with, trained with and deployed with paratroopers, and we spent most of our time being trained up on weapons, multiple calibers. i have seen firsthand how destructive they are. i have seen firsthand what they do to the human body. i grew up in neighborhoods where the idea of public safety was always a want and not a have. when i think about putting together responsible, common sense gun laws, as we have done in the state of maryland, it is

not about are you taking away people's freedoms? the way i look at it is, are you actually offering a sense of freedom to people to be able to grow up safely in their neighborhoods, grow up with safety in their communities? when we said a person who has a history of mental illness and history of violence should not be able to get their hands on a firearm, that anyone of a certain age should not be able to get their hands on a gun, no reason for a person to bring a firearm into a nursery or amusement park or home of worship. we said there are just common sense gun laws that you can put in place, even for people who believe in a second amendment, people believe that we are not about taking away firearms from people, but what we are about is making sure that people can and should feel safe in their own neighborhoods, can and should

feel safe in their own communities. judy: what would that debate look like to you? gov. cox: in utah, the debate would be a little bit different. what i am fascinated with in this discussion, where i would start having this debate, as he started, talking about his background, growing up. my background is very different. i grew up in a rural community, small town, i grew up on a farm. i had a gun in my truck every day driving to school my sophomore and junior and senior years, as did all of my friends. i had a 12 gauge shotgun or another depending on what we were hunting after school. that is the way i was raised. now, you would never drive to school with a shotgun in your truck. that is crazy. i get that that is crazy. this was absolutely normal. you were weird if you didn't have a shotgun in your truck when we went to school.

that is an important starting place for me, very different from him. when we recognize those differences, instead of dehumanizing and attacking, you are try to take guns away, destroying the constitution, so i have to hold on. or vice versa. you want kids to die, what is wrong with you? you cannot get to an even starting line when that is where we are starting from. i do think it is important -- and i want to underscore this. it is ok that the laws in maryland are different from the laws in utah. it is not just ok, that is how our country was founded. one of the problem we have gotten ourselves into is this idea that every state, we have to have exactly the same laws. people naturally push against

that. federalism was important then and it is important now. if we had a little more of that, they would be less tension at the federal level. judy: another issue getting a lot of attention, become very hot and difficult, diversity, equity, inclusion. governor cox, last month, you signed legislation restricting what the state can do, state-supported schools can do. talk about your thinking about that issue, and then i want to hear both of you talk about how you have a discussion about dei. gov. cox: i wrote 5000 words about dei a couple days ago. i know that you are dying to read those 5000 words from the governor of utah about dei. i would encourage you to do that if you have nothing else going on later today. [laughter] to me, this was a critical discussion. what we did in utah was different from what we see in other places, states.

i was looking for a more positive vision of what this looks like. i do not believe that government should discriminate on the basis of race ever, at all, period. a very universalist approach. i am a student of dr. king and the civil rights movement. this idea that a white person cannot understand what someone of color has experienced, i get that. i cannot put my place in your shoes. i don't know what that is like. but i do believe, again in universalism, we are all humans first, and i can understand what it means to be sad or hurt or attacked unjustly. i think that is very important. more to the point, though, governments should never use that power. it will always be counterproductive.

the more we divide ourselves into groups, the worse off we will be. what i said was, dei is really tough because there is dei the words, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and then a very defined and political philosophy that is also dei. or dei comes from that. it is postmodernism, post-colonialism. i will not rehash all of that. but i believe it is an ideology that is counterproductive and can ultimately be dangerous. the government should be engaged in discrimination on the basis of race, to elevate certain races or ethnic groups, certain sexualities that have been oppressed in the past. i think that is incredibly problematic. that is why i pushed back. what we did in utah was very different.

we said government cannot discriminate. we cannot require you to submit a statement, pledging allegiance to dei to get hired or advanced. but we did not defund dei. we said we are going to use that to help people struggling. we should be looking at first-generation college students. we should be looking to help anybody who is struggling toward completing a college degree. we should be looking at those who come from poverty and don't have the same opportunities as other people. that is going to disproportionately help minorities in the state of utah. but it will not discriminate distinctly on the basis of skin color. it will help them. people will disagree with me, but for me, that is where it starts. judy: governor moore, that is utah, you are the governor of maryland. listening to his description,

his thinking on this, how do you have that conversation, how do you express your own views which i assume have some differences with governor cox, how does that evolve? gov. moore: i remember when. the morning of our inauguration, some people here were there. we actually started the inauguration down at the annapolis docks. the annapolis docks are beautiful but that is not the reason we started down there. the reason we started down there was because of the history of the annapolis docks. the annapolis docks were one of this country's first and largest slave ports. we started with a wreathlaying, we said a prayer to the ancestors, and then we marched from the docks up to the statehouse.

it was at that statehouse which was built by the hands of enslaved people and then i was inaugurated as a 63rd governor of the state, first black governor in the state of maryland. i remember some of the coverage i heard. immediately it was, well, he is starting his inauguration with indoctrination. he is starting his inauguration with dei. no, i started my inauguration with history. that is history. i think there is this reallywarped conflation of what we mean -- again, not coming from a political world. this politicization of what we are simply asking is that we want everyone to be acknowledged and who they are. we want everyone to feel accepted with who they are, with their family history, family

lineage. there is never a room that someone is in there because someone is trying to make a point, or because somebody is doing it out of kindness or as a social experiment. i want everyone in my state to know that every room you are in, you are in that room because you belong there, you are in that room because it would be incomplete if you were not there. the idea of making sure that everything from our curriculum to how we are building out a society, we want a society that looks like a beautiful mosaic of the places we call home. focusing on inclusion, focusing on making sure that you have an administration that looks like the state, making sure that you are not getting to a point of -- i agree with governor cox about the role of government. i also don't believe the role of government is not telling people what books should and should not

be in libraries, telling people whose history is worth reading and understanding, and whose history is not. that is where i believe, past the acronyms or politicization, this is about are we willing to understand and acknowledge our own history? people say the reason they are banning this is because they don't want people to feel bad. that is not the reason. the reason it is happening, people don't understand their history, they don't understand their power. that is the reason i walk into every room with my head high and chest out, i know my history. judy: you know there are governor that are part of the governors association that believe there should be restrictions on how history is taught. gov. cox: i am not one of those, i want to be clear. if you read the last 1000 words of my 5000-word post -- [laughter] i talk specifically about the importance of teaching correct history.

gov. moore: but i do think it is important, but for those governor that are doing that -- not governor cox -- that we have to, as a society, be honest about what their motivation is. it is not altruism. it is not because they don't want people to feel bad. there is something deeper as to why all aspects of our society, no matter who you are, why they don't want everyone to understand where they come from and a journey that we have all taken to make our society better. judy: we are at the end of our time but i want to close with a question to each of you. where will we be on this in five years? i'm asking you to look at the crystal ball but what do you think? where are we headed, governor cox? gov. cox: [laughter] i am a natural optimist, so i am going to take that approach.

i believe the pendulum always swings. i think this pendulum will swing, too. it is very easy for all of us to say, and it is a mistake, but this is the most important election of our lifetime. what if i were to tell you that that is not true this time around? we survived the last eight years, we had two presidents, weirdly, most americans didn't want to be president, and yet, here we are. we have made it through. i see some green shoots coming up where more and more people are starting to recognize this. when we launched this initiative, i thought people would think, halfwit think i was crazy, the other half angry. but it is the exact opposite.

we are finding allies. there are groups all across the country that are deeply engaged in the work of de-polarization. i could name dozens of them. they care deeply about this. the polling is showing that americans are desperate. there is a market failure right now in politics, huge market failure, and neither party is taking advantage of it. neither party is capitalizing on it and somebody will at some point. i don't just share this to be better with my fellow governors, that it is the right thing that america should do, that it should be altruistic. i believe governor moore believes that. i wish more people did. but i also believe it is just good politics. i believe that you will be rewarded for treating your opponents with dignity and respect. the public will be ok with a democrat and republican sitting on stage and having a conversation like this because i

think there are more adults out there, and they would like to be treated as adults, and they absolutely want to engage. they want to know what you think about dei even if they disagree with you. they will respect you for sharing it not just in 280 characters on twitter, but actually going to have a thoughtful conversation about how you got there. i believe there are more people like wes moore than aren't. five years from now, we will be much better off, especially when both major parties are forced to have two new candidates. judy: governor moore? we heard what you said. [laughter] governor moore, where will we be? gov. moore: we will be in a better place. i really believe that for two reasons. one is because -- i think about what governor cox said. i am a student of history. i love history.

as difficult as times are now, it's important to add an historic context. i go through this exercise sometimes, even when i'm having a tough day, things didn't go well, things don't look good, what i would ask people to do, when you are having that time, spend time reading history. it adds a sense of context to everything. when i am having a bad day, and matching having a conversation with frederick douglass, explaining to him how difficult my day was. [laughter] imagine a maryland or, having a conversation with another marylander, harriet tubman. i have to tell you about my day today. and then see the look that she will give you. [laughter] we have to remember the historic context of the evolution of this country, the evolution of our

states. and i think if we do that, we are willing to do what it was before us did, which is go through the work, not simply give up or retreat, then we are guiding ourselves to a better place. governor cox knows this story. in my first days as governor, the first trip i took outside was to western maryland. they were having a boil water advisory. they were having a water crisis, so i went to see the mayor out there who has turned into a friend. mayor colburn. when i first met him, he said, governor, do me a favor. turn 360 degrees. he said the only guarantee i can give you is you didn't see a democrat within five miles of anywhere that you looked. [laughter] but he said, you know what? you are the first governor that

has been here since 1996. 1996. you got to do the work. i'm a big believer in this idea, i believe, i have faith that we will be better in five years. as the holy book says, faith without works is dead. faith alone is not going to get us there. we have to understand our history, understand that trajectory we are on, and we will be fine. but faith without works is dead. we have to do the work and get to know each other. gov. cox: the ark of the universe still bends to moral justice. it is not a direct line, it is still not, and sunday, somebody like wes moore is going to run for president and i will probably campaign for the other side. [laughter] but our country will be much better off. if and when that happens. judy: much better off when what

happens? gov. cox: if and when that happens. [laughter] judy: that is the subject of the next luncheon. let's give a hand to governor cox and governor moore. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪