It does disturb me when we talk about january 6, and people had nothing to do with january 6, so that shouldnt be what even came up. But we do know who did. Announcer were going to leave this now and thank you live to the National GovernorsAssociation Winter meeting with Supreme Court justices soto player and coney barrett, and spencer cox. And now please rise and welcome t. C. Washington to the stage to perform the national anthem. O say can you see by the dawns early light what so proudly we hail at the twilights last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight oer the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming and the rockets red glare the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there o say does that star spangled banner yet wave oer the land of the free and the home of the brave now approaching the podium is the executive director of the National Governors association, bill mcbride. Bill good afternoon, everyone, and behalf of everyone at the National Governors association, a very warm welcome to all of you today. Were pleased so many have joined us and we invite you to participate tomorrow, also. Tomorrows sessions will include a briefing from pollster frank lund followed by discussion on Artificial Intelligence issues with tech leader mark an dreessen and our final session tomorrow will be a roundtable discussion on housing issues led entirely by our governor. Three governor led task forces will meet tomorrow starting at 9 30, the task forces are economic redevelopment and revitalization, education and work force and Community Investment and Public Health and disaster response. Each task force has great speakers lined up, including commerce secretary romando and other task forces and check out these meetings tomorrow and stop by them. This Plenary Session is the highlight this year. Governor spencer coxs n. G. A. Chairs initiative is extremely timely given the extreme levels of polarization were seeing across the country. As the leading Bipartisan Organization representing our nations governors, its truly a testament to what the n. G. A. Stands for. Governors are stepping up to demonstrate its possible and imperative for republicans and democrats alike to disagree strongly without disliking each other. I think governor cox and our vice chair for their leadership and championing this effort and thank every governor today for being with us in bipartisan leadership and willing to Work Together for issues involving states and territories. We have a great session planned for you this afternoon and look forward to hearing from our esteemed panelists. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to the chair of the National Governors association, utah governor spencer cox. Ladies and gentlemen, its such an honor to be with you today, to see so many of you. We so appreciate our sponsors and everyone who makes the National Governors association possible. Thank you to bill mcbride and his team and incredible staff that put together another amazing meeting and most especially i want to thank all the governors who joined us here today. Thank you. We know its a busy time. And most of us have our legislators meeting right now. Mine ends next week and its a terrible time for me to be here. I have no idea what kind of trouble theyre getting into right now. But i love my legislators if theyre listening. And please pass those housing bills. I need them next week. Look, before i start, i want to make a pitch for your attendance at our summer meeting on july 11 and 12 in Salt Lake City. Not just because july 11th is my birthday and im sure you wouldnt want to disappoint me and not be there but more importantly, some of you came five years ago when governor herbert hosted the summer meetings and we want you to come back. We think youll very much enjoy the grand america, a grand hotel where well be hosting the meeting this year. Outside the room today and tomorrow youll find a booth from our utah office of tourism highlighting the mighty five, our five National Parks in utah with suggested itineraries and we would encourage you to bring your families and kids and grandkids and come and make a vacation out of it and have these five beautiful National Parks. We have close to 50 state parks and so many amazing opportunities to take advantage of. Park city is just a few minutes away from downtown Salt Lake City where well be hosting the meeting and southern utah is just full of amazing places that will just blow your mind and imagination. I also will offer a little teaser. Jerod and i have been talking with some high profile celebrities who are very interested about the work were doing and the possibility of a concert, were not sure we can pull it off but were going to try and if were able to pull it together its something you wont want to miss and its something you want to bring your families to, full of music and culture and how we can get this message of depolarization outside of this room and into the culture more broadly. I want to talk for a few minutes about this disagree Better Initiative. Most of it wont come at any surprise to those of you in this room but need to emphasize some of this data anyway. Study after study shows our social fabric is framed fast, trust in major institutions has plummeted over the years to historic lows and so has our trust in our neighbors. Republicans and democrats increasingly view the other side not just as misguided but immoral and dishonest and 30 is of americans have ended a family relationship because of politics. The proportion of americans who believe Political Violence is acceptable have reached new highs. Threats against members of congress have increased tenfold since 2016, not 10 , 10 times, while threats against federal judges have more than doubled. International groups who study these kind of things start classifying the United States as a nation on the path to becoming a failed democracy. One of those organizations, freedom house, actually said the United States is, quote, on one of the fastest downward trajectories of any country in the world over the last five years. Many in this room have quoted Ronald Reagan who said that liberty is just one generation away from extinction. Ive used that quote many times as every good republican does. And ill be honest with you, i would say it but i didnt really believe it. I thought come on, i mean, maybe that was true some day but its been 250 years. Weve got this figured out, were good. It turns out that were not good. The governors can tell when you weve had multiple meetings with National Security officials over the past year who warned us about this, we had ambassadors from allied nations tell us that they fear the world cant count on the United States anymore, but i want to be optimistic because there is some good news and think we all need it. The good news is this, its all based on a lie, or at least the misperception. Were actually not as divided as the conflict entrepreneurs would lead us to believe. Those same surveys show so much polarization and distrust, they also revealed the left and the right are wrong about each other. Voters attribute tremendous use to the other side that they dont views they dont actually hold. Each side believes the other side is statistically about 30 more extreme than they actually are. Groups like more in common are tracking this Perception Gap and the results are astounding. Our views, we give too much air time to combative voices who represent a tiny sliver of the population. A analysis from the pew research said a 1 4 of adult twitter uses generate 99 of political tweets. The other good news is there are lots and lots of elected officials modeling good behavior, and especially maybe more than anywhere else, nowhere else but the governors in this room. I want to offer a special thanks to all the governors who have been a part of this initiative so far and helped show our country the politicians that disagree passionately can still be friends. I stepped back in the room this morning in the white house as we were all mingling and just took note of the conversations that were happening. Unlike what most americans think, you all did not divide yourself into conservative and liberals and republicans and democrats. In almost every group of people talking, there were red and blue governors having conversations together. When we decided to do this initiative and focus on healthy conflict, i honestly wasnt sure if any of you would be willing to help us out and lend your voices but ive been blown out of the water by the response from governors and other elected officials. At the top of that list is our esteemed vice chair who has been with me every step of the way. I suspect and feel confident hes dedicated far more time to this initiative than any vice chair in n. G. A. History. Bill, i apologize, i should have done better. I lost track of how many times weve appeared together on podcasts or sunday morning shows, weve had phone calls together with celebrities interested in giving their voice and we participated in the event at Colorado State university who actually now has a course titled disagree better, graciously sponsored and hosted by governor polet and c. S. U. He highlighted our disagree Better Initiative in his state of the state address last month, and i dont know if the rest of you mentioned it but theres always next year. Thank you for your kindness and dedication, jerod. Let me mention a few other governors, laura kelly joined me for a fantastic event at the george w. Bush library in dallas last month and offered the prestigious lecture at kansas state last month and talked about the polarization and how to address them. And governor lamont led an event last fall with former governor rails about civil discourse in politics and our disagree better ad series has been very successful. We so far released ads with polis, full com, sununu, murray, holcomb, and others. Well be releasing two new ads, one with governors gordon and grisham and the other with the mayor of tuscaloosa and one features a great conversation about alabama football. Were excited to see that one. Well be recording several more ad this is week. If you havent had a opportunity we have a recording booth set up and would love to include you. So please join us if you havent been scheduled and are interested. For those of you who have not yet seen these videos, i want to show one, the most recent video released with governor wes moore and the republican mayor of lana coning, did i pronounce that right, wes . Thank you. Hes the mayor, jack colbrunn. Lets watch the video. Hi, im wes moore, democratic governor of maryland. And im jack colbrunn. We give you background and experiences. We do a lot of things differently and goes beyond eating at different restaurants. We can have our differences without being hateful. We can listen to the other side and ask questions. Dont get us wrong, differences matter. We wouldnt be maryland without people from big cities and small towns, justice warriors and talk show conspiracy nuts and everyone in between. We need them all. Were not asking everyone to vote for the same person and read the same news or even agree on the big issues. Were betting theres aer with way to disagree. In the end we might not be as far apart as we thought. Governor . Donald mind if i do. Thanks, man. Youre welcome. Together we can disagree better. Thank you, governor moore, that was fantastic. Thank you to the amazing team thats been doing this work with us. I want to say just a word about why we decided to produce these ads. 18 months ago Stanford University and a coalition of other universities conducted the strengthening democracy challenge, a mega study of 25 interventions which they narrowed down from 260 submissions to see whether and how much these various interventions would reduce animosity and support for Political Violence. One of the most successful was a video by my democrat opponent and myself in the 2020 election where we stood side by side and disagreed but didnt hate each other and both wondered what was best for our state. That ad was unbeknownst to us submitted to the stanford study and turned out to be one of the most successful interventions in lowering the feelings of Political Violence and animosity towards other people. That formed the basis for the disagree better ads were doing with the governors. Everything were doing is not just happy talk but based on evidence and science that we can, as leaders, help turn down the level of partisan animosity in our country. The point of all this is to help us actually accomplish stuff, which is not just toxic for our souls but it makes it really hard for those of us elected to solve problems and actually do our jobs. Certainly weve seen the dysfunction thats become the norm in congress. Now, there are lots of people that are really grateful for us as governors and what were doing. Theres a huge ecosystem of hundreds of organizations around the country trying to address polarization. Everyone from large philanthropies and grassroots organizations and academic scholars working to understand what works and what doesnt. Theyre all aware of what were doing and trying to accomplish and theyre cheering us on. Again, my sincere thanks to all who have participated and those planning to participate. Ill reiterate the idea behind these ads and everything we do with disagree better is not about compromise, its not. It really is not about compromise though we hope that we will find some compromise as we Work Together. Its not about being nice to each other, although heaven knows we need more niceness in our world. Rather, what were trying to do is help people understand that they can keep their passionate ideological positions without hating the other side or framing people who see things differently to a threat to america. The real threat i believe the most critical threat in our country today and not just in our country but across the world, because we need American Leadership and were losing it as were too busy hating each other, the real threat is the belief on both sides that the other side is trying to destroy our country. Its the Perception Gap that got boast sides thinking of breaking norms and institutions because they think the other side is going to do it if they dont. Ladies and gentlemen, thank for you what youre doing to make our country a better place. I truly wish that every american could see what i have seen in these rooms every time we get together, that there is hope for a brighter future. That we do have republicans and democrats who are devoted to solving problems, actually solving problems and getting things done. Theres an exhaustive majority out there. They exist. Theyre tired of whats happening in our country. Theyre desperate for anything and theyre losing hope quickly. We have to be the adults in the room once again. Its up to us as governors to show the American People that there is a reason to be hopeful and we can do that together. With that let me now turn the podium over to our amazing vice chair, the governor of the great state of colorado, jerod polis. [applause] jerod thank you, spencer, for those inspiring words. Its a privilege and honor to work alongside governor cox on this effort thats critical to our states, to our nation, to our future. As the title made clear, its not about giving up principles and not about agreeing on every issue but how to disagree better. Governor cox mentioned the recent course at Colorado State university that offered a disagree better course and proud to report back 50 students have completed that course. They have an additional 19c. S. U. Global employees that have taken the course. Prior to taking the course, 44 of students indicated they felt uncomfortable having conversations where they disagreed. And after the course, 100 said they were either comfortable or very comfortable having conversations where they disagreed. So thats the kind of work that of course formally or informally through popular communication campaigns we can spread some other great feedback anonymously sent in by students, very informative, learned more from this than any other type of course. Another student said this course is engaging and inspired me to research deeper. Another student said, i thought this was a good course for learning how to disagree better. So how we handle the disagreements we have says a lot about who we are but also about the net result we can achieve as a society. First of all, making sure that people know its ok to disagree. In fact, as Arthur Brooks said, almost no one is ever insulted into agreement. And so again, even on a purely pragmatic basis, if your goal is to move or change the status quo, youre unlikely to get there by demonizing or attacking your enemies that doesnt exactly convince them what youre going to do is correct. Let me be clear, its not just an initiative or exercise for the sake of talking about it. Our democracy depends on the success of people being able to disagree with one another passionately, emphatically, but being able to Work Together with Mutual Respect and dignity. The disagree Better Initiative is an important reminder to all our fellow americans theres a healthier, more productive way to deal with conflicting opinions. Governor cox and i never disagree on whether colorado or utah has better skiing. We all know its colorado. But what we can agree on is we want to make sure that Winter Sports are available for the next generation of kids we support