Transcripts For CSPAN2 Gov. Larry Hogan R-MD Still Standing

Votes as any candidate and becoming only the second republican governor to be reelected in the history of the state. Governor larry hogan discusses his new book launches on the date of the Virtual Event entitled Still Standing surviving cancer, riots a Global Pandemic and politics that divide america. He originally made with a publisher just before the corona virus pandemic hit the united ud states and they then delayed publication for two months could add five chapters about the coroncoronavirus, the economic s and dealings with the white house which he said need for more timely and interesting books. We now invite you to the virtual programming coming to you with governor larry hogan and the Foundation Institute director. Host governor hogan, it is great to have you. Income junction this is going to turn out your best because the fantastic stories in it. Guest it is an honor to be with you today. It could be my best or my worst, but thank you. Im glad you enjoyed it. I hope that other people will as well. Guest host when i read it right there in the first couple of chapters, you come from a political family. Your father, larry hogan, and congress in the 70s and ran for the senate and had another major job. You come from a pedigree thats truly important with your background. Guest im very proud of him. He served in congress for three terms back in the 70s and gave up a seat to run. Ive learned a lot about Public Service and integrity from my dad. I spent much of my time in the private sector but had much to do with my early interest in politics and the reason i took an interest in getting involved. Host your dad is famous for his columnist and as you know, one incredible moment of fame, being the first republican member of the house, the first republican i think on the House Judiciary Committee to support the impeachment of president nixon. Guest i was in high school at the time and my dad was on the House Judiciary Committee. He was a strong supporter of president nixon, and i got the chance to meet president. They campaigned together and i think my dad was fond of mixing and victor fond of nixon. He was one of those on the committee making sure the process was fair, pushing back when he thought the democrats were being too partisan. He fought to make sure the president could present his own witnesses and evidence. He was a former fbi agent and lawyer who after seeing the evidence it pained him but he believed the president had committed impeachable offenses and he was the first on the committee to say so. At the time a lot of republicans were awfully mad at him in the white house and congress and voters in the district, but its something hes probably most remembered for her and i am most proud of him because he had the courage to stand up and put aside his own political career and it is hard Party Loyalty and affection to do what he thought was right for the country. Host that is a courageous act. Speaking of your dad, one other point i wanted to make, i know youre in for the senate in 1982 in the reagan presidency, and in doing some research i found we have a lot of scripts here president reagan used to support members running. There is a great script we have president reagan speaking about your dad. He said we dont need rubber stamps in the senate. We need hardworking people and integrity like larry hogan that are willing to contribute their brains and hard work to building the american future you and i believe him so deeply. Host that is the first time ive heard that. I dont renumber that from back then. Thanks for digging that up and sharing that with me. Host i will send you a copy, governor. Now, a lot of people admire Ronald Reagan but you are truly an authentic because youve got some history i would love for you to talk about with respect to the president. Guest my dad first got involved in politics in the 60s when i became interested i was involved as a teenager in college republicans. It was 1976 my dad who was in the house my dad was chairing the campaign for the reelection and had a big part. I was so enamored with reagan in 76 i was at the convention as an alternate delegate. I was running around with my sign and hat. His positive vision for the future and the way that he spoke reached me in a way frankly gerald ford didnt and my dad got angry with me because he is a friend of ford trying to campaign and hes like what are you doing supporting reagan. But i really like him. [laughter] i was a true belief or in 76. Then i got involved in life as a chair and worked in the campaign as a delegate and 80 and 84 and nobody had more of an impact on me, nobodys philosophy was more. I was sort of coming of age right out of college. I served on the inaugural committee. He was the guy that i still look back to all the time and think about this is the kind of leader that i aspire to be. Host this is your first book i believe. Some who finished their first book look back on it as a moment of exhilaration and joy and some find process miserable. Where do you fit in . Guest i enjoyed it. It was a little bit cathartic, i guess. When i first one it was impossible to do. We had the highest percentage. When we pulled up peoples that you should write a book about how you did that. I said you should write about that experience into the night battled this lifethreatening cancer after five months in and they said you have to talk about this and then became the second governor in 242 years to be reelected. You have to write about this, so eventually i got around to it. I turned it in right before this coronavirus crisis. It took a long time as you know to write the book that i enjoyed the process and i hope people will enjoy reading it. I asked the publisher to put it on hold it was supposed to be out two months earlier and they could only delay it until the end of july but they asked me to make it more current some of the things going on today with my leadership of the National Governors association and what was going on with fighting the Global Pandemic and economic crisis they are dealing with, so i think it makes for an interesting book but it was difficult to get all this done and we ha have planned a big tor around the country and now we are doing all of it virtually as they are still dealing with the crisis because it is just impossible to have an inperson events these days but thank you for giving us this opportunity for the first event. Host governor, first, congratulations on winning a tough fight on cancer. I unfortunately have had the same experience, diagnosed with stage three, different kind of cancer, but a magnificent accomplishment to fight back just a few months into your first term as governor. How is it possible for you to have fought that fight and run the state of the same time . Guest god bless you and glad you made it successfully through your battle. It changed me as a person and it made me realize the things that are important. Ive met so many incredible people that went through tougher battles than my own. I got to meet their families and to see what they go through and its something im going to be involved in forever to raise awareness and money for organizations and to try to fight until we find cures for these diseases. Diseases. Thdiseases. But id only been governor for five months. We just one this big huge overwhelming upset victory, the biggest one in the country and i had my first thought is that if session after putting together an entire government in an overwhelmingly democratic monopoly state. We cut taxes for the first time and balanced the budget, got rid of the deficit hole in th the0 days and then battled the riots and 60 days later i was hit with this news. I was on my first trade mission to asia and wasnt feeling that well. Aches and pains and was feeling a little tired. I ended up having doctors come in and tell me that i had advanced aggressive cancer all over my body from my neck to my groin and it ended up being almost an eight team month battle with chemotherapy. Chemotherapy. I was dealing with all of that while being governor in a very tough state with a lot of things going on, but i talk about this experience in my truck. I got to meet so many people and i told ththey told the stories t was like going through that, but my first worry was how do i tell my family, it was fathers day weekend when i got this. This is on a friday. My first thought was ive got to tell my wife and daughters and my dad who was 80 at the time is coming over for fathers day dinner at the Governors Mansion and he took it harder than anybody. It doesnt matter how old you get i was still his little boy he couldnt keep out of trouble and protect that he cried the whole time, but then it came out and i had to announce a typical state of maryland. I tried to be very transparent and share it with them. 6 Million People had just put their trust in me and i had to explain to them i was going to continue to try to work from the hospital to continue to run the state and came out of it, thank god, stronger than ever. Host yeah. And aside from finding the best doctors you can, advice, governor. For people going through a similar experience as you did, if you dig deep, is there one really important piece of advice that you might give . Guest im a big believer in the power of prayer. I los had a lot of people prayig for me. Having a positive attitude is a mental part besides the physical ravages of the disease, trying to stay positive and focus on getting healthy is important and having a support network. But just your family, but people that cared about you. I was lucky to have thousands of people across the state. Not everybody has that. And having an incredible to try to get the best ethical care and attention that you can and listen to your doctors. I was lucky, because in maryland we have an amazing medical facility, and i have great doctors and nurses who were taking care of me. I think people need a support network and theyve got to stay positive and they will get through it. Host yes. Well, lets talk about another terrible illness for a few minutes but you talk about. Some of the final chapters in your book, and obviously thats coronavirus. Out here at the Reagan Library in california, governor, you know we are still in a state facing a tremendous crisis. The number of cases continues to grow and the number of deaths etc. But you all seem to have gotten a good, a better handle on it in maryland, and i know its been one heck of a struggle. How have you been able to do that . Guest i dont want to get too overconfident because we do have a number right now but they are not being complacent and this virus is no means behind us and i believe we have the potential for this to continue to get worse going into the fall. And we are seeing alarming spikes and increases across the country. The virus doesnt recognize the borders and some people are taking different actions, and its affected where they are in the curve and how successful theyve been in flattening the curve. Right now, our metric that they are following are still trending pretty good. A number of cases weve increased testing dramatically. So the cases are going to go up a little bit. If we look at positivity rates and hospitalization, how many people are in hospital beds and death rates all of which are trending down, but weve got to stay vigilant and stay on top of this. You saw some of the states that were relatively in good shape that are out of control now. Weve got to listen to the advice of the Public Health professionals, the epidemiologists and the smart scientists. Weve got to wear masks and social distance and do all these things. We successfully and safely reopened about 90 of the economy and reached the peak above 90 days ago and now we have downward trending numbers, but we watch it every single day and if we have to take actions to stop it, we are going to not hesitate to make those decisions. We had to make some very difficult decisions when we had some difficult times that in the early part of this as did every state in the nation, and i never imagined being in this kind of position or making the kind of decisions we had to. Almost every day we were making decisions that have to be made to keep people safe. Host sure, sure. And this is not an inexpensive feet, is that . Meaning this has all caused havoc in the states Financial System how is it going in maryland . Guest estate Financial Systems are being impacted but it really impacted the economy about what its doing to all those Small Businesses out there. The unemployment and loss of revenue. Because of that, because people are not working and businesses are suffering because people are not spending money because they dont feel safe, the revenues to the states or down and in many states down as much as 25 or 30 . We are not as bad as some other state but we will be impacted and have to make very tough fiscal positions in the state about how do we provide more services to people in need with a lot less revenue, so its going to be tough for governors across america. Host is its still a sticking point, governor, between the white house and the state governors on whether there will be any federal assistance to help manage the impact of the state level . Guest we have differences of opinion sometimes between the governor and white house. I chair the National Governors association and i work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and i have through this entire pandemic. I think weve had 40, 41 or 42 calls with all the nations governors. Many of them with the president , Vice President and cabinet. The communication both within the administration and governors on their own has been good. The governors have been really good at sharing best practices about whats going on in your state and how long have you dealt with this, how is this working. And the federal government has stepped up with regards to the carers act and funding thats desperately needed to help people that are unemployed and help some of those Small Businesses and help us with certain issues, but they are also a little bit frustrated that sometimes we are not getting all of the assistance and help that we need. I think we could have had a National Testing Strategy Early on in this process that would have been helpful. It was a bit of a 50 states scramble with everybody making things up on their own, and i dont want a monday morning quarterback because we are still in the middle of this and its going to take the federal, state and local government to continue to fight this battle. But the good news is we are all communicating and trying to work through the differences of opinion. Host an you know, governor, the media often times tends to overplay if theres any criticisms or disputes between the governors. Host guest most of it is productive and one sentence will get pulled out thats blown into a headline. It seems its more hostile or negative than its intended to be, but i would say there has been some friction and disagreement, but weve also been appreciative for the help that weve gotten, and when the president is doing a good job, when the governors agree, we certainly recognize that and when we feel they are falling short on the needs the state has, i havent been afraid to stand up and tell them fairly directly. I mean, thats my job as the trimming of the governors. Host yeah, yeah. You mentioned National Testing strategy. If there were one single element of the administrations actions during all this is that the one where you say we should have thought that through better and that would have been talk for the governors of the states . Guest i talk about this in my book in the early stages of this as i was writing about in the march and april time frame. At the early stages, had we gotten more aggressive there were some smart people in the administration that were aware of what was happening and never giving advice to the white house, but i think they were a little slow on developing and saying lets leave that up to the state. I appreciate the states flexibilities, but there were certain things only the federal government had the ability to do, and i think a massive Testing Program early on could have helped us stop the spread of aat an earlier stage before e had, you know, im hundred 40,000 deaths and the states spiraling out of control in a number of states, but i think the messaging we had great meetings with the task force and all these leaders. Sometimes the president s communication was different than what we were hearing from the rest of the administration so i think the messaging was one of the big problems we had. We are talking about reagan was such a communicator and i think the scales fell short on this. Host understood. Fair point. Schools. Out here in california, around the Reagan Library, most of the states he got the unfortunate news just last week from our governor that some of the Public Schools are going to need to offer paid online rather than in person have you made a decision in the state of maryland held the schools will offer that . Im sure theres a lot of parents concerned about that. Guest everyone is concerned. I think everyone would like to see us get our schools back open as quickly as possible. Its important to actually have kids back in the classrooms, but they also need to make sure that we go about it in a way that is safe for the kids and the teachers. We havent made the final decisions yet. The way it works, we have a state board of education to put out a plan, kind of a framework of a plan about a month ago and they are now getting input from each of the jurisdictions to put a draft together. What we will probably see is some flexibility in areas that are impacted and affected differently where some people may be doing more on my morning and some people have some type of hybrid and other schools that are actually able to open up. But we are going to follow the cdc guidance which has been excellent, and listen to the Public Health professionals suggest try to do everything we can to get the kids running again in a safeway and air on the side of getting kids running again and in the classrooms but doing it safely. Host sure, sure. There are several chapters in your book, governor, where you talk ab