There was an early story on when I first ran that I looked to regal in my tweed suit with pearls and every hair and place to ever relate to the average voter in New Jersey. And so funny how we're so judged by our packaging, isn't how I know?
I never wore pearls again. That was Christie Todd Whitman, the first female governor of New Jersey, who served between nineteen and two thousand one, and someone I've always deeply admired because she's come across as level headed, measured, and really in this very partisan, toxic atmosphere that we're living in today, Brian someone who I think was pretty moderate and certainly listened to both sides, and even when she ran for office, it was very difficult for somebody like
Christy Whitman to get through a Republican primary. Mike Murphy, who was on this show earlier, was her campaign consultant. He described to me just even though she was such a big star and a great candidate, she was considerably
to the left of where Republican primary voters were. And that was back in when that was back and so of course that was pre Palin pre Tea Party, pre Trump, and the world has changed pretty dramatically since then, so queery whether somebody like Christy Whitman could get elected to office in either party today. I've done so many political interviews and female candidates and office holders are few and
far between. I was hardened to read though. Since Donald Trump was elected president, something like eleven thousand women have been inspired to run for office. So hopefully things will change, because I think the record is pretty abysmal when it comes to electing women to positions of power. Well, it's improved a little on the legislative side. There are more women in House in the Senate than when Christy Whitman was governor, but not so much among chief executives executive
jobs around the country. There are still very few female governors, and this is more of an issue I think for the voters. We have to be more willing and able to imagine women in these roles. I am woman, to hear me roar in numbers too big to ignore, I'm sorry. Governor Whitman has stayed involved in political discourse, at least, writing a lot of op eds and opining about the
state of the environment. As the former head of the e p A, and of course we talked about climate change and whether there are reasons to be hopeful or whether we should all just move inland and give up now. But of course, most Americans probably last remember her as the e p A administrator right after None eleven, when she infamously said that the air was safe to breathe.
She later apologized for that mistake because, of course, so many first responders got very sick after working down at the pile, as it was called, following the terrible events at the World Trade Center. I interviewed her for sixty minutes many years ago about that, and um, she clearly came to regret that decision because she did put a lot of people in danger. And her tenure at the
p A was a very tumultuous one. As we discussed, she had major conflicts with the administration Vice President Cheney, in particular about climate change, about how power plants should be regulated, and other issues, and we got into all of that, but more broadly, we talked about the lessons that she learned as somebody who was in the arena taking incoming fire for decades, somebody who took risks and put herself out there She certainly was born into a
family where she didn't have to do that, and she's in many ways an exemplary public servant. She has a long history with President Donald Trump, and the first thing we asked her is how she was feeling as she is watching things unfold in the nation's capital. What are you thinking, Christie Todd Whitman, I'm very troubled. I mean,
I've seen this coming for a while. That my book back in two thousand and five, I guess it was um kind of predicted what was going to go on, and being in a position to saying I told you so is not satisfying at all when it's moved this way. I've maintained for a long time that I thought that Trump voters and the Bernie Sanders voters were two sides of the same coin. They were people who were angry and frustrated and scared at the inaction in Washington and Congress.
They didn't know what was happening with their future, and they didn't really listen to what their candidates were saying in the same way that maybe others were. They just wanted to hear they were going to blow up the existing system because it just wasn't working for them. Sometimes, I wonder, do you think people expect too much from their government? Oh? I think they have very high expectations.
Let's put it that way. But that wouldn't be hard nowadays because Congress really hasn't gotten other than the Affordable Care Act. If you look back over the last eight to ten years, there haven't been a whole lot of major pieces of legislation that have changed the way people live. And as they are looking at the economy, not it's growing two percent, it's just it's not great. They're worried about their jobbing. Part of it government can do nothing
about because it is called its development. It is the technology, and technology is making a lot of people redundant, and we're seeing that and that scares them. When you need to worry every day about how you're going to feed your family, keep a roof over your head, whether you can get your health care, those are real concerns, and they just didn't see Washington address them. They just saw Washington yelling the people yelling at one another over partisan issues.
And if you think back, we didn't used to every vote was not a partisan vote. It used to be that there were policy decisions where two sides would come together and say we've got to do this, and if someone had a real problem with a vote, they say, Okay, you don't have to vote on this one or this amendment. We'll let you go. Now, every votes a partisan vote. It's more about partisans politics than it is about policy.
And as you mentioned, you wrote this book back in two thousand five about how the Republican Party needed to move to the center. This was before the Tea Party and Sarah Palin and certainly before Donald Trump. Why do you think we've seen this collapse in not just the center, but the constituency for the center in American politics. Well, I don't think we actually have seen a collapse of the constituency for the center. What we've seen as a
collapse of people participating in the system. And if there's one thing that is good that came out of this election cycle is I think that people have finally figured out that the way to make a difference is at the ballot box. Because up until this cycle, if you looked at it primaries, the average voter turnout primaries and this country was about ten for congressional relay elections at the top. When they were the top of the ticket
was and presidential. We patted ourselves on the back saying if we got over Well, when you do that and you think about it, particularly in the primaries, who is who makes up that ten There the most partisan people, and they tend to have an agenda. They have one or two items about which they cared deeply. And so the most partisan people are making the decisions that we face in the fall, that everyone else faces in the fall.
And then people look at it and say, well, I don't like either of these candidates, but just to push I'm not going to vote, but just to push back against you a little bit on that. Donald Trump has like an eight five or approval rating among Republicans. I question which Republicans they're pulling. They're pulling his base. His base is very very strong. They're true believers. They're people who say the system is so messed up that at
least he's doing what they say. He's doing what he said he was doing going to do, but he's not. And eventually I think that will start to percolate down. Um, he's done some of it though, and he has certainly talked to it, and uh, it's interesting early on I've heard anecdotally. I can't prove it, but that when he went first went down after he was nominated to talk to the congressional leadership, they started talk to him about policy and he said, no, no, I figure out what
people want to hear, and that's what I tell him. Well, let's step back and actually talk about your relationship with Donald Trump, if we might, because that goes back quite a way. So you were, of course governor in New Jersey while he was a major casino operator in Atlantic City. When did you meet him? How did you meet him
and what was that relationship like? Well, I met him at the very beginning, when after I'd been elected, we held a big event, fundraising event for charities called Many Phases One Family in Atlantic City, and um we had an entertainer who was supposed to do a concert that night and I it was Barry Manilow. And on the day of he suddenly said, oh, I didn't know this was political, and he backed out. I have suspicions as to that might have been just a ted or orchestrated
but that could be me. Um. Anyway, Donald Trump stepped up and said, I have um, no, I can't Paul Ankle, that's right. When was this? This was right after I was elected. This was before my inaugural when we did uh that was that three days of the weekend before the before the inaugural. And he stepped in and Paul Anko was wonderful and he was great and Donald Trump, I can't stand that song Christie my way is better than You're having my baby. That's not one of my favorites.
But he was very nice. I mean, I actually wasn't all that worried about the whole thing because I figured, you know, this is these kind of things happen. You just to refund the money if people wanted back. It was all for charity, big deal, go to bit earlier. But anyway, he did step in and the only thing he asked was that he and Marla the wife at the time. Yeah, I think it probably was Marla just need wanted to sit with John and I at the beginning,
which he did, and it was fine. What really broke any relationship we had was when UM I opened up the card or getting into Atlantic City made it easier for people to get into Atlantic City because I also UM and Nicer the Road Nicer Bridge. UM also opened up a piece of property, that's access to a piece of property that Steve went owned. It also opened up a better access to Trump's second casino, the Marina Casino.
But because Steve Wynn was coming in, who was Trump's arch rival at the Trump's archer, these groups say those things changed, so so basically you were dead to him as a result of that. Oh yeah, oh yeah, he was very He was not a supporter in my re election campaign. Shall we say, how did he make his displeasure known? Oh? I think he said some things that were not terribly nice and tweet about you. I don't think what tweeting was around then. It was too long ago.
I would have if he could have, And you know, I mean, that's just one of those things. It's so you endorsed John Kasik in the campaign, then you said you'd support Hillary over Trump. At the time, you wrote a Hillary presidency promises more of the Obama failed policies. Not exactly glowing endorsement there. But she would at least walk into the Oval office ready to govern. She would be a steady hand on the nuclear code. Do you think our current president is an unsteady hand on the
nuclear codes? Well, Fortunately, they're enough roadblocks put in place for that to be um the top concern. But I do certainly think I do question his judgment um the kinds of things that we're hearing about, what was said in the Oval office with the Russians, his disclosure of sensitive information. Okay, he did not say it was Israel, but he gave enough information that allowed people to go backwards and say, this is clearly where it had to come.
And then in Israel he said, oh, I never mentioned Israel, which I never mentioned, which you want to say, oh, come on, really, Um, he's his own worst and me in many ways. If he didn't tweet things at two a m. Things would be a lot quieter. He keeps stories going that don't need to keep going, or you know, wouldn't be as prominent. But all this stuff with Comey and the apparently what he said to the Russians about calling called me a nut job, and that he things
were going to be easier. He didn't say he did it to relieve plessure on the Russian probe, but he just said it was things were much easier now, so you can people draw their own conclusions from that. We have to be very careful though he did not say I did it because but but he did say he did say in an NBC interview that was what he was thinking about the Russian investigation. So clearly if it walks like a duck, and from a legal point of view, I don't think you can make the A to B
that cleanly were not in a court. But that's all I'm talking about. Republic opinion. Clearly, Uh, people believe that not his Again, what's so fascinating and scary that that every poll that's been done, and particularly John Detal Wilpie did one for Harvard for the Kennedy School, and it showed people don't trust any institution. They don't trust the news, they don't trust the courts, they don't trust the presidency. And that's a really bad place for rust be as
a nation. I mean, where do you turn? That's you know, that's the topic of conversation everywhere I go. I just went to the graduation of Colorado College because my stepson just graduated from there, and the commencement speaker gave an excellent, excellent address about truth decay and about how we deal with this bifurcated society that now currently exists, and I think everyone knows it exists, they bemoan it, and yet
they don't know how to fix it. How do you fix it when people are so partisan and you know, they make of alternative facts, but I think they're clearly alternative points of view. I wish I knew the answer. I wish it were simple, that you could come up with one or two answers. But it's something that's going to take time. It's really is, and it's it's a reinforcing that what we have to do is listen to
one another, stop shouting. That you can disagree without being disagreeable and doesn't make you my enemy because you have a different position. If people would just take the time to really discuss issues, it's amazing how many points of similarity and addressing them you can find. But you know, you talk about listening and talking to each other. It does sound a tad Kumbaya at this point in time, Christie, because I obviously I agree, but it's sort of but
we have to push back. We have to push back harder in the sense of we have to it's so easy now to communicate that we need to communicate. One of the things that we've found is that if you reinforce positive behavior, I mean, if they're for instance, then there's a congressman who are doing what you want them to do, let them know that most of the time we don't. We just bitch at the ones we don't
who aren't doing what we want them to do. And so if you're a representative and you're supposedly representing your constituents and all you hear from are the people who are saying you're doing a terrible job because that was a really awful vote, or don't you dare vote this way, and not hearing from the people who say, you know, we're we're glad that you're talking to the other side, we're glad that you're forming bipartisan coalitions. Then what do
they do they representing their constituents. They also know that if they go against leadership and actually tried it, because nowadays, if you reach across the aisle at all, leadership says to you, you better watch out, we're gonna get you in a primary and we're not going to support you. Uh, that's scary stuff. If what you want to do is be in office so you can make a difference, are
you discouraged that Republicans on Capitol Hill haven't grown a pair. Yeah, I am, and I'm discouraged that Schumer at the very beginning of this administration, in his um what he was saying to his members was one of our one of the things we want to do is spend every moment trying to embarrass the president. I mean, that's not the attitude we need. Isn't that what McConnell said, though, when when I don't Obama was elected absolutely, but that's neither
one is right. I mean, the problem is we have to stand up as a people and say, no, damn it, that's not what we want to hear. Well, you saw the same thing at play with Merrick Garland and Neil Gorson. It's so an eye for an eye mentality. You knew there were several other institutions than in the eighth year. You don't get to a point judges anymore, it's hard
to find. Yeah, yeah, can I ask you more broadly speaking, The last time our institution seemed to be under this much stress was during Watergate, and I think a lot of people don't remember that the smoking gun tape that was at the center of the Watergate scandal was about the President conspiring to get the intelligence community to shut
down an FBI investigation. Familiar. So we now have these reports that the President Trump not only tried repeatedly to get the FBI director to back off, he asked top intelligence officials to get the A and General Rogers, Admiral Rodgers, Mike Rodgers, the n S. A. M McCain says, this is Watergate size and scale. Do you agree with that? I do? I absolutely agree. I think that is where you know that. So are we heading toward impeachment, resignation
something like that? I think it would probably be resignation rather than ampeachment. Impeachment is a tough thing to prove. And now, of course you've got Bob Muller as a special counsel, and first of all, he's a dead, honest, really above board guy by everybody. But the problem is a special counsel is a criminal investigation, which means that those and I will say, I thought the Senate investigation was moving forward in a pretty bipartisan way very seriously.
But now what you'll have as a whole lot of people who might have been called to testify before the Senate or the House, who are not going to want to do it because there's a criminal investigation lurking out there, and those things also can take a lot of time. Besides the fact that the Special Council can be fired by the President. But if that happens, let's forget it. That's all over. I think if I don't think that would ever happen, So it could really slow things down.
It could because Bob Miller is going to be very, very thorough, and a Special Council has to be thorough and has to follow every trail wherever it leads. So it's going to be it's going to take a while.
I don't think we're at that stage yet. So for for people who aren't necessarily students of Watergate or understand how corruption or ethics violations are really investigated on Capitol Hill, give us a sense of sort of, So they're all these investigations going on, right, You've got the FBI investigation.
Is that still going on investigation? There's a Senate intelligence investigation, the House Intelligence I sent there another over, I mean is that aren't there some other congressional investigations going on to I think those are the four major ones. There maybe some smaller ones that a little finite parts of this whole story. There's plenty going on, I mean, Governor, a sense of like the time frame and what we're dealing with, because I think people feel like they're about
to explode if the President doesn't do it first. So I mean, how how do you see this all kind of um rolling out? If you will? Well, a special counsel that is probably going to take a lot of time. When you say a lot of time, it can take years. I mean you look at what happened the Watergate and the Special Council and the amount of time that the break in was June of Nixon didn't resign intil August of seventy, so I mean that was a long time.
So that's the problem, and that the Senate will go ahead, but as I say, it probably won't have access to as much information or people as it would have otherwise. I mean, they'll what Flynn did and take the fifth um constantly, constantly. So I'm not going to tell you what I which I mean it shouldn't. But everybody says, Okay, that means you're guilty of sin and when you take the fifth but it shouldn't. It's it is a constitutionally provided um provision for you to not it self incriminate.
But that right there, you're saying, oh, you'd incriminate yourself if you said anything which means you did something bad. Uh. The whole thing is is just I can't believe it hasn't been more than a couple of months and yet this turmoil is roiling. He's doing a very good job, it seems overseas right now, but it's not going to make all this go away at home. And what about Flynn and not coming clean about all the money he'd gotten from all these Russians when he was applying to
get his security clearance renewed, Right, it was insane. Right, that's another investigation that's going on into him, just person just very specifically. But he will also be caught up. And I think that's part of the reason why he took the fifth before the Senate, because it wouldn't turn over the things, because he knows the Comy investigation is
going to come after him. All those people, Manafort, Stone, all those people are going to be caught up in the Stone apparently was very happy when Comey was fired, said now I'm having a big cigar. Well, guess what I would sound. I was going to say, yeah. By the way, the new Netflix documentary Get Me Roger Stone for people want to Understan haven't seen it? I have phenomenon. It's it's really excellent. But we have to throw to a quick break. We'll be back with more from Governor
Christie Todd Whitman. We're back with former New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman. And may I call you Christie? Please? Do? Can I sell you CT? I'm kidding, I'll call you christ No, you don't see I think that a lot of people I you are sort of regal and patrician, and I think it's because you come from and I grew up on a farm. I'm very good at shoveling. You know what, well, do you feel comfortable Do you feel comfortable with waspy? You've been called that before. I've
been called a lot of things. How would you just like to be called or how would you like to be described? Uh? Somebody who tries to do their best. I mean, I don't know, because there was an early story on when I first ran that I looked to regal in my tweed suit with pearls and every hair and place to ever relate to the average voter in New Jersey. And so funny how we're so judged by our packaging, isn't he? I know I never wore pearl U again, speaking of your packaging, I beg your pardner
being careful in this atmosphere these days. That could have all sorts of meanings. I don't. I don't mean it in the in the Trump sense of the word. Um. You kind of come from Republican royalty. Your parents were for decades New Jersey's most prominent Republican couple. Your dad helped to build Rockefeller Center. Your mom was vice chair of the Republican National Committee, kind of a pioneering woman
in Republican politics. My grandmother to your grandmother as well well her, she was very involved in politics and New Jersey and Women's Federation. So did you grow up thinking
that you'd like to run for office. No, I grew up thinking knowing that I wanted to be involved in policy, because that's what I'm the youngest of four, youngest by eight years, so I was sort of the tail end, and I got to hang around the dining room table all the time and be at a lot of events and things that my parents were doing, and heard the conversation about what was going on the community or the
state of the nation. And we lived overseas for a bit, and so I always knew I wanted to be involved in policy. I didn't think specifically about running for office until I got well into my career. What was it about policy that really kind of u turns you on? I mean, I could only ask you that question and Brian Goldsmith that question, but otherwise it would be ironic. It would be a limited number of people have really
turned off by policy. But something, you know, some point of conversation, some the ability to make a positive difference in people's lives, to to really affect things in a in a way you think they should be going. It's um and it's just so involved in people. I've always been. I have a short attention span. The longest job I ever held was governor for seven years. I like going up a learning curve. I like learning new things, and I like getting to know and be with people, and
and that ability. When you think about policy, you're thinking about how do you make things better? How do you make whatever it is better, whether it's individuals, lives, the environment, whatever, and uh, that was just an enormous turn on and it was just fascinating. Was is there is there a specific area of policy though, that you gravitated toward. Was its social justice? Was it environment? What? You know? It
was all of those. And that's what was so great about being a governor because the governor you deal with all of it. And people often say, well, what's your proudest thing is governor? I said, you know what? From making I'm known probably most for the plan to put together to to set outside of Manian acres of open space. But I also cared about the fact that we did redid welfare reform in New Jersey in a way that actually supported and sustained the people who were we were
trying to move off. And I still have people who come up to me now saying, you don't know what a difference that made. And I am off. I've been working for years and my children are proud of me and that kind of thing, you know, I mean that the right. That's the thing I've always loved about government and politics is it's so such a wide variety of
areas in which you can be involved. Is that challenging them to have to have that kind of expertise on so many different topics, because I think I could never run for office because I would feel like I wasn't knowledgeable enough about you are you are exhibiting the biggest problem that we have with getting women involved is we always, as women, think it's got to be somebody better out
there at this who knows more than I do. And you know what, you give a guy, with all due respect, um, you give a guy the opportunity to do something totally outside of their spheres of knowledge, and let's fine, bring it on. I can learn, well, we can learn to I mean jobs. It's I when I when Governor Kane asked me to become president of the Board of Public Utilities, I knew nothing about regulating utilities, although we did regulate garbage then, and I do know something about garbage regulations.
Oh hey, the first trial that we had was really interesting. Um. But in any event, you can learn what you don't. The message I give to young people when I speak to them is don't try to be an expert and everything. Know what it is, you want to do what you need to do, and figure out who are the people. There's always going to be someone wherever you go, who knows more about what you're doing than you do. Find them, learn from them, Listen to them, ask them what their
biggest problems are. If you show people a little bit of respect, if you listen to what they're saying, they'll really do things for you and and you can learn. I think another thing that keeps people from running for office is all the criticism, you know, the pressure, people saying ugly things about you, and not just about your pearls and tweets suits, I mean really nasty things. As
we've seen the Internet as unleashed. No, it's different, file And so what would you say to someone who says, male or female like, I just don't have the stomach for it. My skin is not big enough to deal with all the bullshit that I'm going to have to deal with if I put myself out there. Well, I mean I've had some pretty rough things said about me, particularly towards the end of my career and when I was at E p A. And you know, you just have to say to yourself, and most of the instances
that's their problem, not mine. I didn't read. You don't want to look at the cartoons. You want to know who's shooting at you and why? And so you can avoid it if possible, but you can't spend your time thinking about it. It. It has gotten much uglier. It is much worse. It's different than when I was running. There's no question about it. And it's hard to disassociate yourself. You will stay up at night and you will thank god. Am I doing that bad a job? Am I really
that awful a person? You have nights like that? Oh? Yes, oh yes, everybody does, I think. But again, if you if you care more about what you're doing, and if you think you're doing the right thing and you're doing it in the best way, you know how, you just have to have faith in that right. No social media back then, and I think many people say, we won't wouldn't want to do it to our families, We wouldn't
want to do it to our spouse. You have to sit down and have a long conversation with them about what going to be like and what you could possibly face. So you left the governorship about a year early to become EPA administrator under your friend, President George W. Bush Um. One of my favorite stories in preparing for this is that you actually gave him his dog Barney right, who was the actually paid for him in the end, because once he got elected, Yes, he was required to, so
he paid me. That's very funny. But that was probably the toughest position you ever held, if I had to guess, in your political life, because you were really caught in the crossfire between environmentalists who expected more of you on the one hand, and a lot of your colleagues in the Bush administration who expected, I guess less of you, and the Democrats who didn't want anything, particularly Vice President Cheney,
who would have fundamentally different view of environmental protection. Can you tell us what that experience was like, what the conflicts were about, because I think a lot of them are very relevant today. I mean it was it was tough. I expected to have the environmentalists and the Democrats on
the other side. I didn't expect to have to do the three sixty, not get the kind of support from the administration I was hoping for because the President I were on the same page most of the time, but um, the vice president relations with the President before you took the job to make sure you're aligned on these issues. I did, and we were, and you know, you'd go in and I would go in and meet with them
and we were on the same page. And then I'd leave to go back to the office, and I guess the Vice President would come in and things would change, and that was not not fun. So you and uh, you big fan of Dick Cheney, we're not close personal buddies. I mean, I've known him for a long time because when I first went down to Washington, it was to work with for Don Rumsfeld as when he was a congressman going over to the Office of Economic Opportunity, and
he and Dick Cheney were good friends. And so I've met the Vice President several times and he actually, ironically enough, as a very close friend of my son's father in law. UM. And so I get reports back. Apparently he said there's nothing wrong with me that the year Wyoming wouldn't cure. And he said that about you, you'd like carbon I don't know. I said, it's not a lot of time backpacked in the wind River Mountains, I mean, not a
pack trip, not backpack. And when you resign as EPA administrator about two and a half years later, you said at the time that it was for personal reasons, but that wasn't accurate. No, it was. I mean I never took more than a month to month lease on the apartment. E p A was not where I had really wanted
to go. I cared deeply about the environment, but it's a regulatory agency, and with a regulatory agency, you just don't have a lot of discretion or leeway to make to be creative and how you solve problems and make a difference. So and John and I really did hate the bifurcated marriage. Um. I hated getting on that train on Sunday nights because he had to stay in New Jersey for his business. But the specific incident that triggered the time of my leaving was about the Clean Air Act.
As a cabinet member, you weren't elected to anything. It was the president of vice president were elected, and you your job is to give them your best advice and when they make a final decision, you salute and say yes or you say And my feeling was that they had a right to have an administrator who could sign that order in good conscience and carry it out, and I couldn't. I just didn't think it was right. And in fact, they went to court and it was taken to Court, which everything E p A does is and
they lost because the numbers just weren't incredible. See, you have no regrets about resigning. You feel like you did the right now. None. It was the right time and the right thing. And i'd gotten to the point where I think that my pushing back on that for as long as I did, had undermined my ability to get some other things done too. Up until that point, I mean, we got and it's still amazingly enough. And this is
how dysfunctional Congress has been. The last piece of major environmental registered legislation that was passed was in two thousand and two brown Field's redevelopment, which is thing we got done because I've done it in New Jersey and we wrote that, wrote it for the Congress and we got it through. They hadn't done anything since nineteen nine. That was the first one since nineteen ninety and they've done nothing subsequently. And it's not that the environment doesn't need help. Well,
let's talk about that, Brian, go ahead. Environment being help. According to the data, is another record setting year in a bad way. The hottest ever recorded Arctic ice pack is a record lows sea levels in South Florida. I just found this out and I'm sort of astonished by it. Sea levels in South Florida have risen three and a half inches since an Inconvenient Truth came out in two thousand six, even threatening more Lago potentially potentially um Where
are we on climate? Are there green shoots or glimmers of hope or is this pretty much a tragedy waiting to happen? Well, I mean the climate is changing, There's no two ways about it, and every data point that we see just reaffirms the speed with which it's happening or increases the concern about the speed. I just finished co chairing a test force with ac Counts on Foreign
relations on Arctic policy and the Arctic. We are an Arctic nation to begin with, and the Arctic is is worming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet, and it is the canary in the coal mine. You already have three or four native villages that have moved, another thirty some other are going to have to move, and you run it, Okay, where do you put them? What do you do? How do you move? Who do
you move? Do you move the house first, or do you move the church or the hospital or the grocery store, and how do you get groceries to them in the middle of nowhere. That's happening all around the world. Um Vana Wattu and islands in the Pacific, They're not gonna be around. Who takes them? Are they still part of the United Nations? Who are those people? And also coastal cities here in the United States, not just Miami, but you know what this arctic melting portends for millions from
people in this country. Not to be totally self centered and ward looking, but I mean it's just a matter of decades before they're going to be severely and absolutely well superstarm Sandy. You saw the kind of damage we've got for that. Well, as the sea level rises, that sort of damage with the tides is going to come further and further, intrude further and further into the land, and that's going to pollute waterways. It's I mean, it's a it's it's happening. Humans don't cause it. Period the end.
We are exacerbating a natural trend. The Earth has been changing since the Earth was formed, and I think environmentalists hurt themselves a lot by being so definitive that humans cause it, because that just is such a wide opening for the naysayers. The really interesting thing is that we have proven time and again over decades that we can protect the environment and have a healthy, growing economy at the same time. It's not an either or I know. But why do so many people see it as such
a black and white issue. Well because, I I believe because environmental regulation are easy to hate because when you do it, you're causing people to spend money or change behavior for a problem they may not see or they may not think is real, and that gets a mad and frankly, there have been instances of overreach, there's no question about it. And you have layers because it's not just the Environmental Protection Agency that says that sets them.
Your Department of Interior does some. You've got local, and you've got state and regulations, and it gets to be a bureaucratic nightmare. I get it. But the point being what people don't realize is two thousand thirteen is the most recent year for which we have full statistics, people
in this country died from dirty airborne related causes. That's almost three times as many people who died from auto accidents on our highways that year, and yet we spend so much time talking about how we can improve safety on our highways and in our cars, and yet we have this problem all around us. In many ways, however, we're it's a result of it's our own problem, because we have cleaned up the air, and the water is clean, pure, and the land is better protected, and so people don't
think it's a real problem. And yet all of a sudden they're hearing from government they've got to do something that's going to cost some money. And if your political philosophy depends on the idea that government intervention in the economy is bad, and yeah, it's hard to argue for it to confront a threat that isn't immediately on the horizon or attacking us like isis right? Why do you why are you such a loan voice alan Republican voice
on this issue. Well, they're actually a number of them, but I'm not in office and I'm not running for office, so it's easier. But so it's too scary to to talk about this if you're a Republican because you'll be outflanked on the right by people who say it's going to hurt the economy, it's right, and you'll have big groups like the Koch brothers who will come after you
in a primary. Um. You know the naysayers, but you've got Rex Jellerson, who is our Secretary of State, who believes in climate change and thinks we should take some action on it. I mean, there are some very prominent Republican voices that do believe in it, and their religious voices partake Chilly. There's a group of of all different religions that have come together to say, you know, this is sort of basic that says God gave us this. If you want to believe that God gave everything, God
gave us this, and so we should protect it. Once to your point, there are some prominent retired Republicans Jim Baker, Hank Paulson, George Schultz, Marty Feldstein who are pushing for a carbon tax to deal with this problem, and then the revenue that would be gained by the tax would be refunded to taxpayers. Mitt Romney tweeted favorably about this. Do you think there's any hope of something like that
actually getting through Republican Congress. I think eventually, and we don't know how much longer, we'll have a Republican Congress, but I think eventually we will see something like that because it's what makes the most sense, it's the most direct, it will have the most direct impact because we respond very well to financial incentives. And if people see that they're paying more for something because it is a carbon producer the way it was produced, or it's it's bad
on that scale, they'll make decisions. It's just the way now that the energy star products, the ones that are more energy efficient, have become very price competitive. People will happily take something that tells them they're going to reduce their carbon emissions and that they're going to reduce their electricity bills because it makes sense to them, and they'll
do it, and that's helping. You wrote a piece in the Washington Post last December and you said I was epa administrator advice for the next one, don't walk back environmental progress. What kind of grade would you give Administrator Pruett at this juncture? Well, I mean, in fairness to Scott Pruett, he does what the President tells him to do, although from his past history it would seem he's very much in sync with it. And what they've been doing
is trying to unravel regulations. The good news is they've been so slow in making appointments that they haven't been able to get it everything that they want to roll back. Are there regulations that have outlived their usefulness? Are their regulations that where the new technology has super seated them, Yes, and we should be looking for those. But to say automatically you're never going to have another regulation unless you get rid of two others, it just makes no sense.
And yet that's the way they're proceeding. And so he is doing what the president wants him to do. But he was picked for that job because he was obviously comfortable doing that, and I just have a real problem with it. But this does contradict a Trump campaign promise. He said he would push for crystal clear, pure water clean going to happen, And yet we read every day about another regulation that either is being overturned or not
being enforced, to not being enforced. You can't just if those that have gone final and I have the weight of law, you can't just do away with them with a magic Wand so that's the good news. It's just going to take a while to do that. But no, you're right, it's just as if the president says he wants more coal, bring coal back, but on the other hand, he wants to uh pushback on regulations that would make
it more difficult to extract oil and gas. And frankly, the reason coal is fading in this country is not because of environmental regulations, so because of economics. Yet we want to do more fracking. So you you know, you're going to have a conflict here, but that's life. You get these conflicts. But coal gets so much attention from the president, from the media. And one of my favorite stats actually is that the coal industry in this country
has about fifty thousand jobs. The solar industry alone created like fifty thou jobs last year. And yet if you were to read the papers or you know, watch newscasts, you would think that that we're just a wash and coal that is, you know, that has been taken away and that now is being brought back. It's not really a major factor in our economy. Well it was, I mean, I think what we're going back it was better than fifty of our energy mix. Now it's down in the
forties and and dropping. But again, the reason it's dropping is not because of environmental regulations. It's dropping because of economics. I have to bite on something you said earlier. You said, if we still have a Republican Congress, the midterms are fast approaching, what do you predict will happen. Well, they're certainly gonna lose seats, I think, without question, and gonna lose seats. How many is It is hard to say.
There a number of seats that Democrats are saying are more in play than they've ever been a couple of New Jersey. At the end of the day, looking at those districts, I'm not so sure that there there'll be tighter races, there will be more costly racism, They'll be closer. I think there is a possibility that at least it will get to the point where Republicans will probably have to work with some Democrats in order to get things done. It won't be quite as free of reign as they've
as they've had. I have a question about New Jersey. Do you have to have Christie in your name to be governor? Because Chris Christie obviously he's had a go of it as they say, um that down, Yes, he has, So how would you assess his his performance as governor? And the way he spent his second term. I think, as I look back on it, he did some really
good things in the beginning. I mean, he was able to get things done with the legislature, he worked with them, he showed himself as a real leader, and I think what happened was he started to focus on the next job and spent more time focusing on that than he did on New Jersey. Although he will say and he is trying to move things through now and he's got his big emphasis on drugs and drug addiction, and I
think that's that's appropriate and good. But um, I think he got himself caught up in as happens to people from time to time, when you everybody around you was telling you you are the next presidential material, and that happens to people. It happened. It was interesting when I ran for the United States Senate. That's what happened to
Bill Bradley, because he was a head. He is a very bright, very decent guy, and I think his problem was he just was so convinced he was going to be re elected because he had a walk on his first reelect sixteen percentage points and was right widely touted because of his background as a Rhodes scholar, Princeton graduate, New York nick basketball player, Olympic basketball player, and a rewriter of the tax code, that he was their next
presidential candidate, potentially that he didn't pay attention to the issues in New Jersey, He just forgot about them. Were you surprised that Chris Christie was so all in for Donald Trump and it stayed so all in No once he once he made the decision, he had to stay
all in it, and I think he believed it. I mean, I think he believes in Donald Trump um or was going to get something the emphasis or was going to get something right well as part of being there as an early supporter, that's what happens, and a lot of people who decide this is going to be the winner, and I want to be with them. And if I were Chris Christie, I would be rip ship right now. I don't think he's happy. I don't think he's happy.
You know, it's like Chris Christie about this at all. No. I really haven't talked to him since we had the Super Bowl New Jersey. I was kind of the last time just as Bridge Gate was was breaking and had a conversation with about that, how do you think that happened? And he was an atmosphere that was created and a feeling that I mean, not unlike Donald Trump, Chris has he knows who's your friend and who isn't and you
have to be kind or you're not. And he remembers that, and I think that translated, well, that's what I'm saying. I don't think that there are some certain parallels there.
But he knows government, He's known government. He as I say, he started off in his first term I thought very very well and has kind of moved away from the States, spent so much time out of it, working hard for other Republican governors, raising money like nobody'd ever seen before the r G a Um, he was doing that job, but he still had That's why was telling young people, you know, do the job you're in. The next job
will take care of itself. But if you spent your entire time looking at planning on this is what I'm gonna do next, it's not going to happen. I agree. I just tell young people the same thing because I think it's important because if you just are looking at the horizon, you're not focused on the job at hand, you end up doing a terrible job and then you run your chances of advancement. But the thing about Chris Christy people also have to remember is he really is
a family person. I mean, he was wonderful to me when John was in the hospital and you know, offered to send the troopers to come pick me up and if I wanted to get away for because we were there for so long, for twelve days, and he was very thoughtful that way. He can be enormously thoughtful as well. It's too bad to see what's happened that he got so holy in with Trump and Trump treated him so badly.
I mean, he just dismissed him and made him like, go get his hamburgers, and it was it made it seem that way, whether he actually did or not exactly, that was just awful. And when he threw a support behind Donald Trump, I don't think he expected he would be in charge of opioid addiction, which I guess hoping for much higher than I think Jared Kushner. That's his job,
isn't it. Well, everything everything is. When he's not solving the Middle East and reforming the government, he's going to fix opiot to addiction anyway, Happy to know there's a superman for you, right there is the rising young superman. Well, um, you mentioned John being in the hospital and you lost your husband, I know two years ago, Christie, and I think people would like to know a how you're doing and be sort of what you're really spending your time
on today. Well, I'm doing. I still have a business. We do energy and environmental consulting, and I'm on a bunch of boards some one corporate, aging off the ones that pay me and going on to the ones that want me to pay them. Unfortunately, it's a long way around now. As you get older, you need the ones that pay you. Um, but I've as long as I stay involved in policy, I'm happy. And as for getting on,
you just do. I mean, you know, it's just it's different for everybody and and you just have to decide this is the new reality. There's no alternative here, there's no coming back from that. So you just learned to deal with it. How many years were you all married? That's that's a big, big adjustment. That's a big adjustment.
It was I think the second year. I'm finding a second year harder than the first because I think in the second year I finally realizing, no, there is no plan big, there is no Uh, it's not just a long trip. Um, you know, it's a permanent thing, and so you get on. But as I say, I've selling my house in Florida and bought a house out in Arizona for the winters. And uh, we're doing a lot of things with the farm, and the kids have been
just great and the grandchildren. You're starting as at the farm, starting a c S A provenance farms and what are you growing? Everything? You name it, We're gonna have it. We've got every kind of vegetable and they've got a for twenty two weeks you can get if you live in our area. They deliver to your door enough for a family four every week for twenty two weeks, or you can pick. So you're sort of still delivering for the people of farmers delivering. We're trying. You're really bad
a stretch. I thought that was good. I think you should be a consultant, and I thought it was clever. Well, it's it's such a pleasure to talk to you. I've always admired you, and um, it's really interesting to get your take on the state of the country and the state of the world. Thank you so much. Thank you Christy, good to see you as always. A big thank you to our producer Gianna Palmer and to our sound engineer
Jared O'Connell. Thanks also to our social media may Vin Alison Bresnik, to Emily Beana for her part in producing this show, and to Nora Richie for additional editorial assistance. And Mark Phillips whoever you are, wherever you are at some point I want to meet Mark too. I want him to play it my next party. Thank you for our theme music. We still really appreciate it. Katie Kurik and I are the executive producers this show. And remember
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