That mantle of governorship into his role as president. I also had the blessing to be the head of the Transition Team on the way out in 1992, and the Transition Team on the way in in 2000 before and after president clinton, also a former governor served and help the Transition Team for president bush in 2000. And again another governor. It was great to see these three education governors really make a difference in their National Leadership as president of the united states. And so really in that vein its an honor to be here today with Governor Hogan and to help facilitate the first conversation with the state of the state with some of our most innovative and prestigious governors, and governor, just an absolute honor to be with you today and to help walk through a conversation on your priorities and the things that are mattering most to you and to marylanders, and just to the benefit of living across the river from you so im able to watch from a close distance of your great work. I just really an honor to be with you today, sir, and maybe just by quick intro question. I know weve been obviously in a very unique state these last six months, and i think just love to get your perspective as governor that you probably issued more emergency orders than you wouldve ever liked or thought of, but maybe if you could help wokeness through as you think about those tough decisions you have to make that affect the lives and the livelihood of so many marylanders and really your calculation of kind of the risk versus reactive and all those important decisions you had to make. L, first of all thank you very much for being here for this discussion and thank you for your service, and all that you do for education in america. I really enjoyed the discussion with secretary rice who im a big admirer of editors what you think the Reagan Institute and foundation for giving me this opportunity to come in and speak with all of you today. So thank you for tuning in. Bill, as you really change back nearly six months ago as we were faced with this Global Pandemic, this once in a hundred your crisis that has impacted nearly all of us and everything in our lives hundred year had the opportunity to be leading the nations governors during this crisis as chairman of the National Governors association. My initial focus for my yearlong chairmanship was to focus on rebuilding americas infrastructure which we worked on for perhaps the First Six Months of my term and then all of a sudden the world of change with covid, and on for a price of the governors on both sides of the aisle for stepping up and leading in the crisis. All of my fellow governors and federal government but also to do with the crisis right here in my state. I want to save the governors have worked together really well in a bipartisan way collaborating on this, but youre right, i had to make incredibly difficult decisions have that i never imagined making. I believe that weve done over 60 executive orders. We had to make decisions, extremely quickly because peoples lives were at stake but we also to balance out our Health Metrics are trying to make sure we were not hurting those struggling maryland families and Small Businesses while we were working to keep people safe. It was a difficult balance every governor had to make. Im pleased to say we are doing pretty well comparatively. Today we had a 2. 9 Positivity Rate in maryland which is a record for us over the past six months. We continue to look good on a hillside, and we have 100 of our economy opened. Our Unemployment Rate is about 30 lower than the rest of the country, and so we made decisions that we never imagined having to make quite frankly, and it was, ive never been in a situation where our number one job as governor is keeping our citizens safe. This virus that hit is from out of the blue tested the metal i think of all of the people on the frontlines that that make these difficult decisions and find the right balance while keeping people safe and try to keep them economically stable. Thank you, governor. Just again i think very evident i think one of the hallmarks of your career is your leadership attributes, i think ive been evidenced very much especially of late and i was one of the other things i think distinctions you International Landscape is your leadership in terms of your bipartisan ability to work across the aisle, and thats one of the things i really enjoyed about the rise meetings in these last several years is just the ability to bring together former secretaries of education, both parties, as well as bipartisan governors. I would just love to maybe help get your thoughts on the partisan gridlock, and just i think youve been really unapologetically big tent and bipartisan from the beginning of your career, but really maybe help us with your perspective on how you work across the aisle while at the same time really standing by your values and your principles, but just especially in this environment that a country is in today. How is your secret sauce and baby well, thank you, bill. I like you i heard you mention about being a young man and working for ronald reagan. I didnt get the chance to work in the administration but i was a foot soldier in the reagan revolution, and when i was just a young guy and was a delegate to the convention in 80 and 84 and of the chairman of youth for reagan. I got a chance to serve on what of the inaugural committees. It was somebody i greatly admired and i talked often about president reagan, hobby really worked. He had a positive how he he believed in bipartisanship and was willing to work across the aisle to come up with solutions. I remember the great relationship he had with tip oneill when he was speaker of the house, and they had a really good rapport and they would have meals together. They would share a beer together and talk out their differences. It had a lot to do with my whole outlook on politics. Being a governor of maryland as a forcing ive ever been elected to. I didnt spend my career in elected office. I spent most of my career and a private sector as a small businessman but evidently its critically important that we find a way to lower the temperature, to do something about the divisive and angry politics we see today that we didnt see back during those years quite as much back in the 80s. I think that, i have tried the very best. Im in a very blue state. I was elected in 2014 in the blue state in america and have 70 majority of democrats in both houses of my legislation but weve been able to find ways to come together and to really accomplish on some big issues, some really true bipartisan Common Sense Solutions to the problem. I think its something we definitely need in America Today. I know most people are somewhat frustrated by the kind of divisiveness in the gridlock in washington, and i just had a zoom resume meeting like this earlier today with no labels and the Problem Solvers Caucus and a Bicameral Group of senators and congressmen on both sides of the aisle talking about trying to reach a compromise solution on the next stimulus bill. I really think we need to see more of that bipartisanship. I mentioned earlier the governors did Work Together in a very bipartisan way, and im hopeful that regardless of what happens in this upcoming election that we are going to in 40 days or so, that maybe we can find a way to get back to a more civil dialogue and where we can maybe accomplish some solutions without demonizing the other side back and forth. I really think thats one of the things that worked a lot better decades ago in washington than it is today. Governor, i would like to maybe focus a little bit on Still Standing and maybe you can explain this a little bit to our audience today, but i know youve had come to just talked about, a very busy five plus years in the Governors Mansion and you plan to write a book even before covid19 hit. You what a few pandemic chapters addressing the early days of covid you had a few state of Emergency Declaration and position of the test gets you secured from south korea. Could you tell us a little bit about the early response and whats happened since, and also just a little bit about the book . Sure. I had worked on this book for a while and its just, its not a heavy political read but i just wanted to share some of the experiences and challenges ive been through and just talk about some of things i just was talking with you about, about how we do something about the divide in America Today and have we can maybe find ways to move forward. But i talk about a number of challenges. The book is called Still Standing, surviving cancer, riots, a Global Pandemic and the toxic politics that divide america. Thats a pretty long title, but i but i have most of this written last year, was supposed come right at the beginning of the pandemic attic of the publisher to put it on hold because where to focus, but we could only delayed for several months and added a few chapters at the end about our collective response to the coronavirus and cathode in the title but it talks about my general philosophy and we been able to get things done in probably one of the most hostile and difficult of five its as republican who not only, sick republican figures to be elected in my state but then because of the bipartisan accomplishments in getting things done together with my democratic friends across the aisle, in 2018 when it was the biggest blue wave, huge blue year and a blue wave in the blue stickups overwhelmingly reelected became the second republican in the history of our state to ever be reelected to office. I think its because people, regardless of the party affiliation, publicans democrats and independents, really do want to see pragmatic bipartisan compromise and effective leadership, and they want to get things done. Thats what they would like to see in washington i think. They would like to see people Work Together better and get things done together. But the pandemic i talk about the response early on completing the nations governors. We had all of the covenants across america when washington in early february at the very beginning of this when we just had cases breaking out in the state of washington, and then just a month or so after that it was spread to every state in america and weve been dealing with the crisis ever since. But again working together with the administration and with the congress, leading carriers act funding, getting support in which together with all the governors, the response has been perfect but i think in a java crisis we really have all stepped up and is going to take all of us continuing to Work Together to try to defeat this hidden in any. Its impacting our economy, affecting our schools and its just about every other aspect of our allies. We have made progress but it is by no means behind us yet. Governor, maybe on the othr national crisis, facing us right now with the racial unrest in the social justice issues that are facing us, i i just remembr as a brandnew governor when you confront the social unrest after the death of freddie gray, and today it is really now a National Challenge that we are looking to address, but just would love, and again, the previous conversation with condeleezza rice and her perspective was honorable and very helpful, but we just love your observations and perspective on what you stepped into when you were first elected but also now obviously with the National Conversation and challenge that we are facing. Sure. I had the pleasure of having another conversation with the secretary rice. We did a thing for the Hoover Foundation and secretary rice and i did one of these things together, and she has tremendous insight and really wise input and advice on this particular issue. But youre right, i saw some of this and dealt with some of these issues much earlier and maybe some of the folks in the rest of the country have. Obviously now with the tragic murder of george floyd, it is elevate these issues front and center, something we are all addressing and dealing with. Body had, i dealt with much of this five and half years ago, just after, i been governor for 89 days when after the tragic death of freddie gray our largest city was on fire and just in the first few hours we had 400 some homes and businesses destroyed and 127 an7 police and firefighters were injured, and the city police force was overwhelmed and they were crying out for help. I declared a state of emergency, and i see an additional 1000 Police Officers and 4000 members of the National Guard try to help keep the citizens of baltimore safe, to stop the violence and to stop the destruction of property, and to keep, the Peaceful Protesters from those that were inflicting all of this violence. I also then moved my entire operation to Baltimore City from our state capital in annapolis, and its been a solid week walking the streets trying to lower the temperature, meeting with community leaders. Walking through friday grace neighborhood, beating with the naacp and faithbased leaders. I think its really important for us to strike that balance of addressing some of the systemic problems and listening to the concerns of people. But what also not allowing our cities to be, and protecting the right to protest while not letting violence take over our cities for months on in. I had several chapters in my book about that. I joke when i went to a new governors go when i first elected didnt say anything about what did you do if Something Like this breaks out of your city. With an affidavit with baltimore i do teach a course of the National Governors association, have advised other governors and new incoming governors about how to do with the crisis like this. And i think looking at whats happening now, a number of both mayors and governors in America Today should probably take a look at and read some of things weve been through because i think they can learn some lessons. I am very proud because of the way we handled that situation and 2015, in this current environment we had thousands of people protesting peacefully in baltimore, but almost no violence, no destruction and no damage, and im proud of citizens baltimore and our police force in the way the Community Came together. Governor, maybe here in the next couple of minutes i would just love to maybe give it to education budget and priorities in the state collaboration and things that youve been working on with the equity issues, School Construction, school safety, getting back to school and getting schools reopen. But just would love to hear your thoughts on your education priorities. Sure. Well, from day one since i became governor, education has been my absolute top priority because i happen to believe very passionately that every single child in our state and every child in america deserves access to worldclass education, regardless of what neighborhood or zip code they happen to grow up in. We have worked very hard to improve persistently failing schools and to the innovative on education and to try to make sure that every one of our kids in our state is getting the opportunity that they deserve. I put record funding six years in a row, sixth budget in a row into k12 education and Higher Education actually. We have continued, we invested more money than our Democratic Legislature actually called for in spending formulas because we thought it was important to make a difference. But we also been pushing for accountability with our local School Boards and School Systems to make sure that theyre working to fix some of the underlying problems that come in spite of investment of money, have caused them to not be as successful as we would like. We have some of the best and most highly funded schools in america. Weve invested 40 billion in k12 education, and 75 of our entire Capital Budget went to education. I pushed through just last year a 2. 2 billion investment in School Construction which is the largest in state history. And we have casinos in maryland. I pushed for and enacted, got the voters to vote for a casino lockbox which took all of the revenues from the casinos and put it into, directly into education, which is made a tremendous difference as well. We havent solved all the problems. Weve been working on trying to prepare our kids for the next generation, preparing them for the jobs of today and really working with, going into our most troubled disadvantaged neighborhoods and trying to improve those schools. But im proud of the success weve made and i appreciate all the work i appreciate this rise opportunity today to hear from some other leaders about all the things that are going on and i thank you for the work that you have done, built. Thank you, governor. I think we could go minute or two, 81 last question. Just really as we look forward down the road here to your final address to the people of maryland and reflecting on your terms as governor. What would you hope to be in your legacy, what would you like to accomplish and put back under eight years of service and i will put you on the spot and ask if youre going to be running for president in 2024, but i know you have a lot of work to do here in the next three years but we just love as we wrap up here to really help. Thank you, bill. I really am focu