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The Find Out Podcast
Why Your Electric Bill Is About To Explode
00:48:47
Former Washington Governor Jay Inslee joins us to explain why your electric bills are about to skyrocket this winter — and why it is Donald Trump's fault.
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:16]
B
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Find out podcast. We have a great show for you today. We have former member of Congress, former presidential candidate and 12 year governor of Washington state, Jay Inslee with us today. Governor Senior, nice to see you today.
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A
Good morning. I'm honored to be on your show. Thank you.
- [00:33]
B
It's our pleasure. It is definitely our pleasure. And Governor, you have been a climate champion for a long time and we're going to get into that in a, in a minute. But we do have a bit of breaking news. We're just going to get your take because you're also an attorney that we have just heard that a judge has thrown out the cases for both former FBI Attorney General James Comey and also New York State Attorney General Tish James, basically saying that the prosecutor was illegally, illegally appointed. And, and sorry, I just dropped my mic like a true pro. And we just wanted, just wanted to get your take on that ruling today.
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C
We're on full vacation mode this week, I think.
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A
Well, Tim, it's a little, it's a little early for a mic drop, you know.
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B
Burned by the governor. That's good.
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C
Oh, nice.
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A
Listen, I have some pretty strong feelings about this. Usually when somebody robs a bank and, and they're accused of robbing a bank, they don't like admitted, they don't tell the public, yeah, I robbed the bank and I'm really proud of it and I'm going to keep robbing the bank. But that's what Donald Trump is doing with our judicial system. He's basically said, I'm going to use the judicial system for my, my permanent vindictive effort to punish anybody who ever criticized me. And it's like he's saying I robbed the bank of democracy and I don't care, I'm going to do it again. That's what he's done with our judicial system and that's what he's done in these prosecutors. He's literally gone out and said, I'm going to politicize the judicial system. And for 249 years, people have said that was just verboten, but he's proud of it and that's what he did in these two prosecutions. Now look, I got a problem with James Comey because he essentially elected Donald Trump in the first place.
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C
Right.
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A
So I don't have great affection for him, but I do have affection for democracy in the judicial system. And this guy has corrupted it. He's turned it into a mob hit job more than a judicial system. So by any means available that was in the law. I will defend judges if they've made a decision based on the law. And as I understand it, these prosecutors were illegally appointed. They're not actually in office. So they're basically just a guy off the street at this point. We don't allow people off the street to do criminal indictments. And that's essentially what the judge was ruling. So from 2,000 miles away, a, it's helpful because if it can restrain Donald Trump. Good. And B, it's probably legally the right decision. But we're not done. He's doing this all across the country. He's got his, his hitman at the housing agency going around, you know, searching everybody's mortgage applications and, and, and turning it into more of a mob based vin, you know, vindictive effort than a search for justice. So I have a pretty strong opinion about this, and this is a big deal to me. I, I was a lawyer for 20 years. The Judicial system is like the last possible restraint on this guy because Congress is not. Obviously Congress has totally abdicated responsibility in a Republican majority. So our only hope for the existence of liberty in this country at the moment is, is the judicial system, number one and two, the November 26th elections. So I'm for the decision.
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C
So I, I was, I don't know anything about anything. With most, with most cases, with, with, with legal issues and attorneys and district attorneys and prosecutors and appointments and all that I had, I was like, okay, I gotta just Google this. The interim, like the chain reaction of interim appointments was, was what really stood out to me as particularly ridiculous because they had what Eric Siebert, right. Was in this position. I think I'm saying his name right, but he's in this position originally and he was, I think, going to get confirmed by a bipartisan Senate. And Trump hated that because he saw that Democrats were going to vote for Siebert and so he withdrew the nomination or put pressure on him or whatever happened. And so Siebert drops out. So then they, then he puts his personal lawyer, this Lindsey Halligan, right? So he takes a personal defense lawyer who has never had a prosecutor or never had experience as a prosecutor in her life, and they take her and put her in this position, which that was what the Judge Wright said was illegal, was you can't have consecutive non confirmed interim appointments because then you're basically just going around the Senate. So the fact that a judge stood up is amazing and great for the rule of law. My question is, does, does this position have to be Senate confirmed now since they can't have any more interim appointments or what. What's next for.
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A
For this process? I suspect your analysis is correct, but I don't know for sure. I have not studied in any depth the particular intricacies of the court's decision here. But I do know that the fundamental aspect of perversion of justice is. Did happen here. You, you can't. Look, prosecutor is an extremely powerful position. It's actually the most powerful position maybe in our American judicial system because they have such power to persecute and prosecute people. By the way, even if you're found guilty, they just made these people spend, you know, $2 million in a defense cost.
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C
Right?
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A
So you can really injure people by making this a partisan witch hunt and a punishment of your political enemies. And that's clearly what has happened with Trump. And again, it's not me saying it, it's him saying it. Right? It's the guy saying, I plead guilty to politicizing the American judicial system.
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B
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
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A
There's no doubt about what happened here. And there's such a bunch of Keystone Cops in that administration, they don't know how to rob a bank and then not be found guilty. Right? So they get this personal opinion, who's a person who had never prosecuted a case, doesn't even know how to do an indictment. In the other case, you know, they, they did. They couldn't even write an indictment that was. Right. That has exposed that potentially to dismissal. So the crime is clear, the mechanism of calling them to account. We can hope that courts will understand how important they are to the existence of democracy. You know, I always think about how we've been lucky to have democracy for 249 years. And I always think about the, the former Soviet Union, when they formed their constitution, it was very, very similar to the US Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. So if you looked at the former USSR Constitution, it was pretty good. They just left out one thing, an independent judicial system to actually enforce what was in writing. So the existence of an independent judicial system is so fundamental to everything we enjoy to not be abused by our government. To see it perverted like that is the absolute most poisonous thing you could possibly say about maybe Donald Trump and I, you know, we just hope some judges will stand up. We'll think, we'll hope the Supreme Court at some point realizes the danger associated with this, you know, this autocrat taking over power because they got to understand Congress is not there to do their jobs protecting U.S. constitution. So we're hopeful this is a good sign but many more struggles to come. Yeah, for sure.
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B
Well, Governor, you mentioned before about him being an autocrat and, you know, basically just operating on his own and helping his friends. And one of the big things we wanted to talk to you today was about both home heating costs and, and climate legislation or climate progress or whatever, which has seemed to all come to a screeching halt. You know, so first, like, you know, I want to talk to you about, like, obviously, climate is one of the most important issues of our time, but has not been one of the top policy issues that voters have generally talked about over the past few elections. How do we start explaining to voters that climate is a very, very important issue and is connected to all of the other issues that, that we have across the country?
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A
Well, I think the point is, I'm not sure it's taken much explanation because voters are getting this. They got this in New Jersey, in Virginia, in Georgia, in California to some degree in the last two weeks because they revolted against these high electrical prices which are caused by the fossil fuel industry, in a corrupt scheme with Donald Trump and suppressed any ability to give consumers cheaper electricity. And this is really important because what you're seeing is, you know, 13 point wins in New Jersey, 14 or 15 in Virginia, first two Georgia statewide, Democrats in like 40 years. Right? Because people were wise to what was happening. They were wise to the fact that Trump and his cult, the Republican Party, has now given total control of their energy to the, to the energy oligarchs who have tried to stifle the ability of consumers to get cheaper electricity. Now, the cheapest electricity you can get today is in renewable energy. It is cheaper than fossil fuel. It is cheaper than coal. And what happened was this corrupt scheme where the coal industry came to Donald Trump and said, donald, we'd like to give you a billion dollars. And Donald said, well, what do I got to do for it? And they said, you need to drive our competitors out of business because these sore guys and these advanced battery guys and these wind turbine guys are eating our lunch. They're selling electricity for less than we can sell it for. So we want you to drive them out of business, regulate them out of business, deny them permits to be able to build solar farms and battery farms so that we can charge our customers more money. And he's tried to deliver on that. Well, it turns out voters don't like it when you take away cheap energy. Farming. And what the polling, the polling after the elections has shown, this was a principal reason. It was actually the most cited reason for Voting for the Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia. So what is happening already is that Americans are saying we want reasonably priced electricity. We know that the cheapest electricity is these renewable sources that tangentially also reduce emissions, which cause climate change, and also climb, cause asthma and respiratory distress and everything else. And we don't like the fact that this corrupt scheme is denying us what we need in our homes, which is reasonably priced electricity and by the way, some clean air we like to breathe in New Jersey, Virginia, it turns out. So this is happening. It's a rather profound shift, and I do believe in next fall it will be a principle decision to make in the US Congress. It is already happening. Now. The other thing that's happening is that people are experiencing this firsthand. They're seeing the floods. You know, they're seeing a couple I met that got flooded twice. They got flooded and it took them a year to rebuild their house. And they had a party about reopening their house. And two days later, another flood came there through their dining room window. I, too, cities burned down in my state. In eastern Washington, of course, Trump has denied us emergency assistance because we're a blue state. We see Alaska villages being wiped out by rising sea levels and melting tundra. We see floods In Texas, where 20 kids lost their lives. This is becoming something that is recognized in people's daily lives rather than just, you know, graphs on a chart. So this is something that is coming to the form in American politics, and this touches a lot of people who might have felt disaffected. I know your group talks to young men a lot, and young men are the ones getting hammered in the economy we have, where it's so hard to build a home, where employment prospects have been difficult, and your electricity prices are going up. So this speaks to everybody. And it's been a very powerful movement that's happening right now.
- [12:52]
C
I think that's the, that's the thing that really stands out for me is, like, the framing of the message for the audience. And this is something that I think the right has been like. They just race to the bottom right with messaging. And so it's, it's very, which is very easy just to race to the bottom. You know, it's all DEI woke, whatever. The left tries to do it the right way, but we're also trying to win fights for the right reasons. I think on the left, it's like we've been aware of the climate problems, global warming for 25, 30 years. I mean, really for 50 years. But that doesn't Win over those people. And so, like, the people in the middle are the people on the right, the people who are kind of detached. And so finding this way to blend the messaging or to, to have the right messaging for the right audience segment is something that I feel like we are starting to understand where you can't win, win over the country one flood at a time or one hurricane at a time. Because if you're in Utah and it's not flooding or hurricane, you don't feel like, whatever. That's not going to, you know, that's not immediately hurting me right now. But when we start talking about prices and the fact that, you know, if we can develop better electric and really alternative energy across the board, but alternative energy sources to provide electricity. Yes. It brings down costs. Yes. Electric vehicles get cheaper and more, More feasible to drive. Like, we can actually have all of these benefits. Most importantly, for a lot of people, or for maybe even most people, it's going to be the pocketbook, that affordability argument that we've been winning on lately. But then you also can piggyback on, like, hey, it also happens to be the best for the environment if you don't, you know, for the climate. If you don't want your house to be washed away in a. Yeah. In a monsoon in the middle of, you know, North Dakota or something.
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A
Well, I agree. You got to understand the depth of Trump's damage to American consumers. Pocketbooks on this thing. You know, maybe we wouldn't expect him to launch a, a shot to the moon like John F. Kennedy did to build clean energy. Okay. So maybe that would be too much to expect of him, but the least we should expect to him is to not take away what we have in our technological pipeline. He has taken this away. It's like, basically, you got two milk companies and he's gone to the grocery store and said, you can't buy the cheaper milk. I'm not going to allow you to have access to these cows, even though they're more productive. And that's what he's done in the energy world, where he's taken away access to solar, wind, and advanced batteries. And he's trying to do this certainly in offshore wind, but onshore wind as well. He's canceled the largest wind turbine project in Idaho. He has told people to stop, you know, essentially permitting solar panels. So he is. He's taken away the things that we do have in our toolbox. And the thing that's so angering to me, and I think angering to so many voters now, is that they don't want an ideological decision, they just want a practical decision. Just give me what works. I don't want to argue whether a Republican, a Democrat, or a free marketer or whatever I am. Just give me what works. Well, this is the stuff that works. This is like a tool that works. So why are we having this argument just because Donald Trump's afraid of wind turbines? Now there's another part of this corruption, too, and that is the fossil fuel industry that's been lying to the American people for decades. For decades. They've obfuscated. They knew their product was going to cause enormous harm. They were told by Edmund Teller, who was the father of H bomb, you're going to have to get a new line of work because your product is going to destroy the planet. That was like, you know, 50 years ago. They were told that. But they have deceived and lied and had subterfuged to try to convince people their product is like milk. So this sort of corruption message is one that also resonates with people along with cheaper electricity. People don't like to be lied to. It's why we finally won the tobacco wars. People didn't like that the tobacco companies were lying to them, telling them that this stuff was good for your lungs. And they're starting to not lie to the fact that fossil fuel industry is telling them that this is not a problem.
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C
But did you know that 9 out of 10 doctors recommend coal power?
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A
9 out of 10 doctors, while they're smoking cigarettes at the same time are heating their homes with coal. So, yeah, that's, yeah.
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B
Well, Governor, it's interesting you bring up the cigarette case or the tobacco case, because I wanted to ask you this and I, you know, I was in the climate movement for a little while. I worked in Al Gore's group before I was in the Obama administration. So I know a little bit about this and have some friends that have been working on this for a long time. And, you know, obviously with the, with the Trump administration in play right now, there's very little at the federal level that the average person could do to shift our policy. But are there, are there potentially punitive actions that, you know, whether it's class action lawsuits or anything that could be filed against these, these oil producing companies that are essentially poisoning our air, making us have, like, shorter lives, more asthma, all of these things. Is that a potential way to go after the oil industry? Or what are some, what are some other things that we could be doing or pressuring businesses to do while we're Dealing with an administration that thinks they're going to make coal great again.
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A
Well, first off, before I forget, the first thing you do is vote next November, right, against this corruption. Okay? Find some people to vote for that aren't under the thumb of Trump or the oil and gas and coal. That's number one. But two, yes, there are multiple lawsuits now pending, working their way through the courts. They're now going into what's called the discovery phase, where these oil and gas and coal companies will have to disclose the information in their database, which has already shown that they knew about this problem for 50 or 60 years or more and tried to hide it from the American public, just like the tobacco industry. And those lawsuits are working their way through the courts. There's about 11 states that actually who are plaintiffs. There are cities and counties that are plaintiffs. There's an individual wrongful deaths lawsuit, actually. It's been brought. First one in the state of Washington. So this is a mechanism for accountability. We believe in America you should be held accountable for the damages that you have caused. And they are seeking accountability so that we can perhaps survive. And those lawsuits are moving forward and we ought to continue this effort to get to the bottom of how bad their subterfugion deceit has been. I'm kind of convinced of that already, of what I've seen. Yeah, you know, I've seen transcripts from 1959 when a famous physicist told them about this problem, but they spent several decades saying it didn't exist. Or B, you shouldn't worry about it. Or C, we're actually solving the problem, which they're not. So, yes, this is a mechanism. Now it's under attack. This will not surprise you that the fossil fuel guys, as part of that corrupt bargain with Donald Trump, are trying to get Congress to take away the ability of Americans to have access to juries. Right now, the juries make a decision. 12 people, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers. They're normal citizens. They come in, their job is to determine who should be accountable for these problems. They're trying to have Congress cut that right off by having these immunity laws passed to give these guys immunity for what they've done. So far that has been successfully blocked because people ought to be able to have some mechanism where we can hold the powerful accountable to the little folks who are the ones breathing this stuff, whose kids have asthma, who are losing jobs because we're not getting jobs created, who are having higher electrical prices and are getting flooded and burnt and have their homes burned down. So we ought to have the right for juries to assess that accountability. And those things are moving forward. But we gotta be alert to this corrupt scheme to try to take that right away to Americans. It's an important one to democracy.
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B
And I think it's really important. I want to talk about something that happened in Washington state last year because I think a lot of people, there's a misconception out there that if you are pro climate, you are anti business. And last year there was a ballot initiative in Washington state, I think it was SB 2117, where essentially my understanding, I'm not from Washington, but you can correct me if I'm wrong, that a very rich Republican just got enough signatures to put on a ballot to repeal. I believe it's the cap and trade system that you have have had in place in Washington state for years. And the good news was that it was resoundingly defeated. But what was surprising to me as an outsider was how most of the industry in Washington state was actually on your side and wanted that. So could you talk a little bit about how you guys have been able to balance the business interests with also getting them on board with basically reducing carbon emissions in Washington?
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A
Well, we have long believed in Washington that this is an opportunity, an economic opportunity for us to build a clean energy economy which creates thousands of good paying jobs, including union jobs and that gives people cheaper electricity and simultaneously gives people cleaner air. And we've delivered on that vision statement. We've had a suite of policies that have helped to build these companies that are clean energy companies of all types with advanced batteries, silicon ano batteries in Moses Lake, clean fuel, sustainable energy companies to build aviation fuel out of carbon dioxide with, with no emissions, a whole software suites of things that, you know, that power our EVs and like. And, and so we're growing. Our clean energy economy has been our vision statement and it's come to pass. And Americans understand that. And a lot of business people understand that of all types of suites, they understand that Alaska Airlines, which is, you know, making investments in sustainable aviation fuel, understands that, that we have to find a solution to this. Because business also understands my state. Having your state burned down is not good for business. Look, when your wheat fields burn up and your apple orchards burn up and your towns burn up, it's not good for business. So we, we did have considerable business support for our, our, what we call our cap and invest bill because it's an investment as much as a trading system. We think a cap and invest is a better nomenclature and we're proud of California of adopting our language. Actually, they just. And kudos to them and Governor Newsom. They just reauthorized their cap and they renamed it Cap and Invest. So Gavin owes me some copyright fees for this. But in any event, this was moving forward. It's been very successful. And when it went to the ballot box, you know, we won 62 to 38. Well, 62 to 38 isn't a victory. It isn't a small margin. It is a thumping. And they took a thumping on this. Those who, the folks who bought into the Trump conspiracy of trying to take away clean energy from Americans, because that's what this bill did. It created a pool of investment that could help Washingtonians get access to clean energy, to get a heat pump, to get an electric school bus, to get an EV charging station. We are giving people access to, to more choices and more clean energy. Trump and his cult are trying to take it away in combination with the oil and gas industry. So, yes, we had a lot of business support. There was actually one oil company that did support our position in getting the bill passed, British Petroleum. It was a little bit of surprise. And the reason is they thought this was a more reasonable approach than some of the other approaches from a regulatory standpoint. But the bottom line is, if you're an innovative culture, as we are in my state, if you believe in the capability of Americans to invent and to create and to build, this is the message for you, that we're going to learn to build these products to sell to the world. And unfortunately, Donald Trump is trying to give these jobs to China. He's trying to cut off the research and development and building the supply chains that puts Americans to work. And guess where it's going? It's going to China. So it's really sad to see him not understand the, the promise of this and to not have confidence in the ability of Americans to build these clean energy economies. And so, you know, this is a speed bump. We're going to get over it. He is, he will be in the dustbin of history at some point, but the place now where we can make progress is in the States. By the way, I don't want to leave this conversation without mentioning this. Yes, this is terrible. He shut down progress. He took us out of the COP conference at all. He's, he's stymied, you know, as much as he can stymie. But the states can move forward. I was actually in Rio de Janeiro a couple weeks ago at the COP conference meeting with other states around the World and counties that are moving forward on this. We have 24 states now in the US Climate alliance, something I started with Governor Jerry Brown. All of these states are moving forward. This is a big deal because we represent 60% of the country and we're all doing good work.
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B
So I have a question on the state issue, because right now, you know, Florida is essentially MAGA land and there are no statewide Democrats. My mom moved down there from Maine. She's a snowbird, so she's one of the Dems trying to get us back. But, you know, they had the hurricanes, I think that was two years ago, and one of her friends, they lost their home. And also the state is finding that no insurance companies will insure homes anymore because they're, frankly, it's too much of a risk. How do we get through to, to people that are, you know, supporters of Governor DeSantis and Governor and President Trump and basically saying, like, your, your, your air conditioning costs probably down there are skyrocketing and you can't, you know, you can't get any insurance on your homes anymore, so you're completely exposed if another hurricane, one of those once in a generation that seemed to happen every two years now comes through. And yet Donald Trump last week, I believe, proposed doing offshore drilling off the coast of Florida. So, like, it feels like there's an opportunity there. But how do we communicate that to people who are generally not interested in hearing about climate or frankly think that climate change is a hoax no matter what's happening outside their back door?
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A
Well, one of the ways is called democracy, which is when we have elections around people and you get people to get the power of this message that you're getting screwed, blued and tattooed by Donald Trump and the corruption from the fossil fuel industry and it's costing you. And I'm encouraging every candidate in every seat, doesn't matter what it is in America, to run on clean electricity. And the fact they're trying to give you more expensive electricity and importantly, as you've said, more expensive insurance rates, where if you can get it at all, sometimes it doubles in a premium. And by the way, such as flood is, fires, obviously as well, we now have situations in my state where people getting hit by these, you know, double and tripling of costs, if you can get it at all, from the insurance market. The other thing we can share with people is it's not just those people who might get their premiums raised. It's everybody, because these insurance industries spread the risk. That means they're spreading the cost Amongst everybody. Even if they're not raising premiums on flood prone houses, they're spreading that risk amongst everybody. We're all paying higher insurance costs because of climate change, even if there's no coastline or fire threat next to you. So to get people to understand fundamentally that this is an economic hemorrhaging of you and your bottom line and your families because of what's going on here, of this corruption and just every time we open our traps, we need to talk about that certain every election. I mean, I think Democrats are going to get this. When they looked at the polling coming out of New Jersey and Virginia that said, this is why we won by 13 or 15 points, folks. So get out there and talk about it. Make the principle. And by the way, here's the other thing. To some degree, a little bit sometimes Democrats have been defensive on this subject. They've been kind of on their heels and say, yeah, but. Or whatever, this is an offensive message. We need to attack those folks who defend the oligarchs, who defend this corruption, who defend pollution. This has to be an offensive effort in our campaigns. I've known that for a long time. I was the first governor to really run on this message in 2012. It's a powerful one. I hope everybody goes for it.
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C
Yeah.
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D
Governor, I'm someone who was very excited by the prep materials that your team sent so that we could do a read ahead. And when I saw the phrase on offense and you telling Democrats to go on offense, I was like, this is my guy. This is the man that I want to see really teaching Democrats something. We've been talking about the importance of democracy and how we're going to use democracy to fight for things that are existential, like fighting climate change and things that are more immediate for Americans who may not believe in climate change, like energy prices. How, how are people in Washington state right now, you know, where, where people are trying to go green and people live in rural areas, how are they dealing with the problem of Elon Musk and what he and his companies have become, especially recently? You know, he, he is almost synonymous with electric vehicles. His Starlink has become an essential way for people in rural areas to connect with the rest of the world with high speed Internet. What are you recommending people do who are in the market for, for batteries, for, for electric vehicles, for things like satellite Internet, where there's not a lot of alternatives?
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A
That's a really good question. I haven't thought in depth about this. By the way, I love your sign. So I'm Totally with you. I don't know what the. What is the basis of your offense sign? Where did that go on?
- [31:28]
D
On Offense is. Is my own podcast, the new one that we just started.
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A
Keep it up. Thank you. I really love it. I've always believed that you should be on the balls of your feet in any sport, so. So congratulations. Well, Governor, one of the things I guess I'd say is I think that we're all humans, and we all have certain strengths and we all have certain weaknesses. Elon Musk has mega strengths and mega weaknesses, and that you try to recognize that we're all a mixture of virtues and vices. And he certainly has led some technological, you know, work that has been, you know, really, really beneficial and continues to be beneficial. But that should not blind you to the damage that a person can use their. Their economic and social power. It should not blind you that he can turn around and hurt your family by making bad decisions. So don't be blinded. It's kind of like you might have a brilliant doctor, you know, but if he burns down your house, you gotta. You gotta still call him out on it. So. And we should be capable of doing both, I think, of using his products and calling him out of what he did. This whole thing when he went through the federal government with a chainsaw was so damaging. We talked a little bit about, maybe it was before we got on about the national parks that are now being destroyed by Doge and other things. And. And you just see all the damage that's going on that we can't. We can't give information to the public. We can't serve him. He's. He's dismembering. He's doing to the Department of Education what the Saudis did to Khashoggi, which is just dismember it. And he's parted it out and he's trying to destroy it totally unconstitutionally. Right. So to the extent Elon Musk was involved in that, which obviously he was, you know, in charge of it, you got to. You got to stand up against it. And there's nothing wrong with appreciating someone's virtuous behavior and confronting them when he's hurting you. And I encourage them to do so. Now, some of those kind of red districts that you talked about, though, they kind of understood this when we voted on this Cap and Invest bill, because we won about 70% of the reddest counties in the whole state. We won because people understood they were getting a good deal, they were getting jobs, they were getting heat pumps, they were getting electric school buses. They liked it. Again, they just kind of looked at it from a practical, non ideological standpoint. So maybe that's the other thing. Don't look at it from an ideological lens. Just look at through a practical lens. Like what are you going to buy it at Costco? You know, so that's why I think it's really interesting.
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B
I don't know if you heard coveted that the Doge Doge employees apparently are panicking about being prosecuted now that Donald Trump has left. And I don't know about you, Governor, but I worked in the federal government for five years and I never worried about being prosecuted because I didn't break any laws. And it is very clear that it seems like they did. And it doesn't actually seem like it has saved any money because of the firings they had to do where they had to give packages to people to leave. Like these aren't just like, you don't just like save money. There's always a consequence to them. So it's a. Yeah, I think we're definitely going to have to see an investigation into that. But I have one more very important climate question for you, Governor, that I want to ask about the Democrats chances in 26 to 28. Donald Trump has said over and over again that wind turbines cause cancer. Can you definitively answer whether that is true or not for our audience?
- [35:09]
A
Well, I can definitively say they cause massive stupidity because that's what they've done to Donald Trump. So I can say they cause massive natural stupidity. It's like maybe we should stop worrying about artificial intelligence and start worrying about natural stupidity because that's what's really going on here. I can definitively say that because there's been all kinds of research on this subject. It's been a very well studied phenomena about electromagnetism or any, any sort of like that. And you kind of have to ask yourself, where does this mania come from? You know, when he was five years old, did he walk by a windmill in the Netherlands and get scared by the shadow or something? I mean, it's almost this psychological thing he's got going on.
- [35:57]
B
Well, it's because there was a wind farm built off the coast of Scotland in view of one of his golf courses. So you were pretty close. You're pretty close.
- [36:06]
A
And by the way, you know, these wind turbines, they look like most of them are placed so that if you held your hand up to know what they look like, if you stretch your arm out, they look like about half Your thumbnail. They're tiny little trees standing out there miles from anybody. So they've been a minimally, minimally obtrusive in our lives and have been very successful. And the reason is we now can marry them with storage facilities, with advanced batteries. Yes, they are renewable. The wind doesn't always blow. But now we can feed that excess energy into our battery farms, which we're building in Washington State because battery technology has improved so much. And that's the other thing about renewable energy. It's continually improving. So solar energy costs have come down about 85% in the last 10 years. But battery technology has similarly come down about 80, 90% in the last 10 years and is going to continue to come down. So we've now turned renewable energy into a stable baseload system for our grid system. And by gar, we need it with the data centers coming on. By the way, there's another issue we haven't talked about here, like who's going to pay for all the energy the data centers are building? Well, they need to pay for it, not the average consumer. And this is an emerging issue in our national discussion as well. Abigail Spanberg in Virginia talked about this. We need some laws that will protect consumers from having to pay for the oligarchs building a data farm. They should have to pay for that additional generating transmission capacity. This is an emerging issue that next time you have me on, we should talk about.
- [37:47]
C
Wasn't it, I think it was the Republican in the Virginia case who said, what happens to solar energy when the sun goes down? And she was like, on the debate stage, she was like, have you ever.
- [37:59]
B
Heard of batteries and when the wind stops?
- [38:02]
A
Republicans. Strange views of it. A long time I was in Copenhagen, one of the first offshore wind farms, and we were getting a briefing on it. This was 20, 22 years ago. And the Republican head of the Natural Resources Committee, we got the briefing from the Vestas guy who builds these things. And he said, well, now when the wind stops, do you run the turbines with a battery? And the guy, the guy started laughing. And then he realized Congressman Hanson was not making a bad joke. He was actually wondering, well, maybe you make something else go around. Anyway, there is some silliness, but the good news is the technology and the cost structure are coming down so fast because I've said 80, 90% and that, you know, that curve might flatten a little bit. Maybe we won't get 90% over the next 10 years, but we might get 30 or 40 or 50. Continued reduction of costs. So Basically what we're saying is let's use the energy source that is coming down in cost rather than the one that's probably going to go up. Because oil and gas and coal, those are finite resources. Right. So this is the best deal in town and we ought to take it.
- [39:20]
C
I think that's the argument that's going to win for us is Americans. We have a lot of opinions about everything and we love our legacy and our heritage and our tradition and all of that. I don't want to fight that battle. And that's why even clean energy versus what is the alternative than dirty energy. And then it's like, well, my dad worked in the oil fields. And it becomes this attack on your identity. No, I read a couple of weeks ago in China, they don't call it alternative energy or clean energy, they just call it new energy.
- [39:47]
A
Yeah.
- [39:48]
C
And it was like, my God damn, that is such a, like a clever pivot. Because no one wants old. Right. New versus old is a very enticing argument. And Americans very much identify with being on the new edge of everything. And so if we start positioning this as do you, do you really want to have BYD out here making $10,000 cars that go 4,000 miles on a single battery charge in China and Brazil and Americans are puking out these coal rolling, you know, Dodge Rams and that's the latest and greatest for us. I think people will understand if we, if we frame this as technology, is going to innovate and we have traditionally been on the leading edge of innovation. We need to be there on this too. Otherwise Ford and GM and all the American brands that we have known and loved for a century are going to be old news. And it's going to be BYD and maybe Tesla. And half of us don't want to drive a Tesla for political reasons. So we're going to be real limited in. There will be almost no competitive American, you know, electric vehicles, vehicles on the market if we can't change how we think about leading the world.
- [40:55]
A
Something you said really stands out for me, that you don't want to make it an identity issue. And that's exactly what I was trying to, to say that this isn't who you are or what you believe or what faith you belong to, or you're, you know, what, who you root for in the NFL. It's not an identity issue. It's a practical decision of what makes sense, that's cheapest and works. And so focusing on that, I think you're entirely right because we got the Future on our side.
- [41:22]
C
So Seahawks are 49ers then, since you.
- [41:25]
A
Brought up the NFL, pretty clear on that. Pretty clear on that one. Seahawks, they got a team this year. Watch for them. Watch for him.
- [41:35]
B
Yeah.
- [41:35]
A
Yep.
- [41:36]
B
I mean, I, I'm a Patriots fan, so, you know, I had five years in the wilderness and now we're back. So I'm. Everyone's groaning across the country that, that.
- [41:43]
C
We have that, but oh, good, we get to talk about the patriots for another 18 years straight.
- [41:48]
B
Governor, you probably don' to talk about the Malcolm Butler interception or any of that stuff, so. Because I do remember, I'm still talking.
- [41:54]
A
About the super bowl against Pittsburgh and whatever year it was where, where the five worst calls in NFL history took place and rob the, the Seahawks of their first super bowl win. I was so mad. You know, when you vote in Congress, you have a green, red and yellow button saying about yes, no or present. And it's always kind of a temptation to vote present if it's a real controversial issue and really don't have a big dog in the fight. But I never voted present except one time and that's when there was a congratulation resolution of the Pittsburgh Steelers. I said I'm present. I am not voting. Sorry, guys.
- [42:33]
B
Well, I would have voted no on that. So you are a better person than I am for that.
- [42:36]
C
But there are battles you have to pick sometimes, you know, you just don't have a choice.
- [42:40]
B
Well, Governor, I want to, I want to pivot to 2026 just real quickly before, before we let you go. You've been very gracious with your time. What do you see as Democrats chances next year and what do you think they need to do in order to make sure we have, you know, obviously, like retaking the House is an absolute must and, you know, it's looking more and more like the Senate could potentially be in play. But what's the playbook that Democrats should be running here to make sure that we make that happen?
- [43:06]
A
A couple of things. One, be ambitious and believe that you can win places that you haven't won before, because when you have a flood tide running, it can carry you a long ways up the beach. And I learned that I've been in and out of politics for 30 years. I went through three, you know, title changes in Congress. I lost1 in 1994. I came back later. I saw, I saw the tide. Believe that the tide can really carry you a lot further than you might think. That means compete in places where it may seem difficult or problematic because when the Tide is running. People cannot swim against it. So any place you can find, even marginally a chance to elect a Democrat, go for it, work for it, find a candidate, get a candidate to run and challenge these seats because the sky's the limit on Democratic possibilities in the next election cycle. That's number one. Number two, I do believe focusing on this new cheap electricity energy is probably the place you ought to start in your discussion. Although you have to argue a little bit that it might be your healthcare costs as well, because those are. Things are twinned. So you're talking about costs of living between health care and electricity. Try to get them both into the same sentence. I guess what I would say we've been so focused on healthcare, now we're finally figuring out about the new clean energy message that I think is equally powerful to the healthcare cost message. And I really doubt that the Republicans are going to be able to do anything about it because they've been trying to get rid of Medicare and Medicaid for, you know, 50 years, and I doubt they're going to be able to change that fundamental belief system to actually bring some relief. So that's going to be an extremely important message as well. And then third, go out there and have some fun when you're campaigning. Anybody who happens to be listening to this, get involved in a campaign because it's fun. I know that sounds weird, but people are going out there in the no Kings rallies and doing their signs that I love and being creative. They're making friends. They're out there showing their agency that we're not powerless makes you feel good. So get out there and help some candidate. By the way, I love these signs. Americans are so creative. My favorite one was, I saw one the other day. It was on this little piece of cardboard and it said, try to say it all on a 16 by 20 piece of cardboard. It was like it was going. Yeah, there's a lot of things to talk about.
- [45:44]
B
Yeah, well, there's definitely some creative ones. And definitely take campaign advice because, Governor, you, I know you did lose that one race, but that was also in the 94 sweep. So we're not, we're not going to hold that. But you usually won your races by 5, 10, 15 points. So listen to this guy. He, he knows what it, what it takes to win a race. But, Governor, we have a, we have one final, very, very important question that Luke has been itching to ask you since you jumped on the stream.
- [46:08]
A
It's a bit of a tricky one.
- [46:09]
B
And something you definitely will not predict.
- [46:12]
A
Where did you get your jacket from? Because it looks awesome. It's kind of a secret, but I will share it with you.
- [46:23]
D
Oh, hell, yeah.
- [46:25]
A
I got a box. After I was out of office, I got a box. I said, what's this box from? And I asked my tree, where did this come from? He says, well, it comes from the Kraken. The Kraken is our new hockey team. And I opened it up, and this jacket was in there from the Kraken. Wow. I happen to have got to know the guys who started this incredible hockey team, who, by the way, also built the Climate Pledge Arena. So the. The arena they play in is called Climate Pledge Arena. It says right on top, this is the first Almost Net Zero sports arena in the world. And. And they give me some credit for this. They tell me, I said, why'd you build a Net Zero arena? And I asked the owners, and they said, because you asked us to, Governor. I asked him to. So. So I got the first almost Net Zero arena in the world. And this jacket.
- [47:22]
B
And a cool jacket. Hey, it's a hell of a deal. Two for one.
- [47:26]
A
You like it? Yeah.
- [47:28]
B
There you go.
- [47:28]
A
Root for the crack and maybe I can get you one. We'll see.
- [47:31]
B
Yeah. Look, do you have a hockey team? I do now.
- [47:34]
A
Oh.
- [47:34]
B
I just said, does Luke have a hockey team?
- [47:35]
A
But now Kraken's the best. The best.
- [47:38]
C
That's a good name.
- [47:39]
B
That's a hell of a name, too. Yeah, I do like that.
- [47:41]
C
No, I. Sign me up. I mean, I'll. The jackets. I'm gonna need a jersey, but.
- [47:45]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [47:47]
C
But cracking is good. Yeah, I like it.
- [47:48]
B
Well, well, Governor, thank you very much for your time, and thank you for always shining a light on the climate issue. And I know even in 2020, when you. When you ran for president, that you. Which I thought was a very good idea, offered up having a debate solely focused on climate. And I hope that in. In the 2027 and 2028 years, when, you know, 3 billion people are going to run for president, that climate is one of those. One of those debate topics. So just want to thank you for all your leadership on this and really appreciate your time. Love your jacket. And, yeah, we'll definitely have to have you back on soon. So thank you very much for your time, sir.
- [48:21]
A
Stay in offense, all right?
- [48:23]
B
We. We sure will. And. And for our listeners, because of the holiday, this is our only episode this week, so we'll be back next Tuesday. Until then, have a wonderful holiday and talk to your. Talk to your. Maybe your MAGA friends and family about have fun with climate and energy costs, get them on our side, and we'll take the. We'll take the House and the Senate back next year. So thank you, everybody. There we go. Thanks, guys.