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[ Applause ]
-Thanks to this amazing audience.
We're so glad to see all of you here today.
Thank you very much.
And thanks too to you, Governor Bob Ferguson.
I really appreciate the time.
You've come a couple times to this program
and we really appreciate it.
The title of our program today is "Rise of the Governors:
Navigating Contrast, Chaos, and the Constitution".
Governor Ferguson,
what is the proper role for Democratic governors in general,
and you in particular,
in response to rapid disruption
and change emanating from Washington, DC?
-Yeah, first, thanks for having me back.
Again, I appreciate it.
Thanks to all of you for being here.
And to the students here, thanks for coming.
And I hope as you go forward in your lives,
I hope you consider public service
at some point in your life.
My whole career for the most part,
outside of my time in my law firm,
has been in public service.
I've really enjoyed that.
And, you know, you wouldn't be here at Seattle University
unless you were a very talented group of young people.
And I just really encourage you to think about that.
My life has been richly rewarded by being in public service.
It does not pay as much as life in the private sector,
but there are rewards beyond, you know,
the paycheck you get that I think are hard to quantify,
but I find deeply satisfying.
So I just, if there's a part of your voice in your head saying,
Hey, you want to think about public service?
In whatever field it is that you're interested in,
I would really encourage you to think about that
carefully and consider.
The needs are great in our state and our country.
And to your question,
you know, the role of governor
and navigating that is challenging.
What I would say is as Attorney General,
it was, I spent 12 years as Attorney General, four of those
when Trump was President before.
It was easier, in a sense,
to navigate there because my role was super clear, right?
The President acted in a way that violated the law
and harmed Washingtonians. We filed a lawsuit, right?
We held him accountable to rule of law.
That was the tool I had. It was clear I could use it.
We had a great legal team. That was what we did.
As governor, it's a little bit different, right?
It's not that very, very clear, specified tool,
although I do work closely, of course,
with our attorney general and our team
to support litigation they're bringing.
They're bringing a lot of litigation right now.
But of course, I think in a nutshell I view my role,
and this is something I think about every single day
to be clear,
right, is making sure that as a governor
that I'm doing everything in my power to defend
and uphold the values we have as a state, right?
The values that we have as a state
that makes Washington unique,
that makes Washington special, that makes me want to live here,
and I suspect all of you and other Washingtonians
want to live here as well.
And there are many ways in which we try to do that,
depending on the threats that are coming.
A big focus right now, we'll probably get more to it,
so I'll keep this brief,
is there are big budget implications coming from
the federal government.
Just a few days ago,
they announced they're withholding $160 million
in funds for public health in Washington state.
That's a $160 million hole in our budget as a result of that.
The tariff situation, we're a very trade-dependent state.
That has a huge impact,
as you can imagine, for farmers, the agriculture community,
and many other sectors all across our state.
So each day it's something a little bit different,
but at the end of the day, working with our legal teams,
working on the policy side,
working on our budget side to address all those,
but at the end of the day,
my job is to try and uphold and defend our values.
-Governor,
you have said we will work with the Trump administration
where we can and stand up to them when we must.
Thinking about the words, "Stand up when we must",
which new federal policies are most concerning
for Washington State
and which new policies keep you up at night?
-Oh man, I don't think I have time.
Don't have time for that. That's a long list.
-You can extend the program.
-Exactly.
And the risk in answering this question,
I'll say is, I'll identify a couple,
but obviously I'm leaving things out that are
equally important to different communities.
You understand, right? It's a huge, huge list
and so I'm not trying to leave anyone off that list.
I hope you understand that.
But you know, I think I reached a point with President Trump
during his previous term
where I just sort of decided I would just
not be surprised by anything he did.
I just wouldn't be surprised anymore.
I just would prepare for the absolute worst every time.
And so certainly, you know,
I wasn't shocked he got elected
and felt I was mentally prepared
for some pretty dramatic things happening in DC
that would harm Washingtonians.
You know, I have to say that even
though I felt pretty mentally prepared for that,
the scale and scope of what's coming is obviously significant.
And so it would be hard to pick just a few.
But right now, I am especially mindful
that we're trying to balance the state budget right now.
We're in a legislative session right now.
The session goes until the end of the month.
We have to, by law, adopt a balanced budget.
We've got a $16 billion budget shortfall,
so that's a huge problem just on our own.
But now these cuts are coming from the federal government.
I mentioned the $160 million in public health.
They cut another $10 million on sort of lunches
for kids in our schools.
There's all sorts of articles being written about them
cutting Medicaid funding to the states.
And just to ground everybody in our fiscal reality,
about 28% of our state budget
comes from the federal government, okay?
8% of our education funds
come from the federal government.
About 60 or 70% of our Medicaid dollars
come from the federal government.
So you can see why I'm especially focused now
as we're trying to balance a budget.
You know, what cuts we make, what revenue do we bring in,
how do we bring that together?
It's a big problem to solve,
but it's compounded in very dramatic ways
by what's actually happening and what may be happening very soon.
So, look, there's a lot out there that's going on.
Obviously I'm deeply worried about,
tariffs in the news just in the last couple days.
But all those attacks on the trans community,
I mean, the list goes on and on.
So, I guess the way I would summarize
that is it's an everyday conversation for me and my team.
Right, it's an everyday conversation.
And what I will say, and it's a dark time for us,
I think, and a real challenge to our democracy,
which I no longer take for granted anymore.
You know, my son, who's a junior in high school,
the book he's reading right now is "Why Democracies Die".
I mean, I was not reading that book
when I was a junior high school, right?
I wasn't thinking about whether our democracy might die.
That was not on my radar. I was reading a lot.
That wasn't what I was reading My son, a junior in high school,
that's the book that he's reading last night,
right when he's going to bed.
Look, we all have, right, there are specific issues going on,
but there's also a larger framework going on
that involves all of us.
I want to be clear about that.
Not just the governor, it involves all of us
to really do what we can on that side as well.
-Governor, so you just mentioned democracy.
So many political observers say governors and AGs
are the last line of defense to protect our democracy,
hence the many lawsuits filed in the recent months.
How effective do you expect those lawsuits to be
and what other actions, aside from litigation,
can governors take to protect their state?
-Yeah, I'll start on the AG side.
So, I mean, the unique power that AGs have
is that we are still a nation of laws.
Donald Trump is obviously testing that in the extreme,
maybe more about that later on,
but for the most part, right, that is still the case.
And so AGs do have a unique role of, hey,
one thing about a courtroom, you've got a strong advocate,
you now have a level playing field against anybody.
The most powerful corporation?
A president, right?
So in the 99 lawsuits we brought when I was AG,
I think 59 of those cases ended in an outcome.
A court ruled on our case.
We won 56 of them, okay? So that was, right?
[ Applause ]
So I think the AG's office currently has filed,
I may get this wrong, eight or nine lawsuits so far, right?
And they so far have been successful
in getting injunctions on a number of issues.
Those are still in the early stages.
So truly the courts are unique in that way.
That's not a, I can give a speech,
that doesn't change what Donald Trump's going to do, right?
We can pass a law in Washington
to try to better protect ourselves,
but even that is still limited.
But a court order, so far, right,
and we hope this -- this holds true,
does have the ultimate impact, in a sense.
And so one thing I was thankful of as an AG
is in bringing those 99 lawsuits,
we needed as a legal team,
the best legal team in the world
still needs experts to file declarations,
right, and to testify.
A lot of those experts are in state government.
And so Jay Inslee, previous governor when I was AG,
made state government available to me and my team
on very short notice.
Muslim travel ban, signed on a Friday,
we filed our lawsuit on Monday.
State officials had declarations
they wrote that weekend so we could file those on Monday.
Like, everybody moved mountains to support the legal work.
So obviously I'm doing the same thing for the Attorney General
and his team now to make sure we're supporting that.
So on the AG world,
that is still very important.
I'm in touch with Democratic AGs all across the country,
as you might imagine, on the important work they're doing.
You know, as governors, it's a different tool, right?
We shore up our state laws to make sure we are doing
everything we can.
I signed an executive order creating a rapid response team
so if folks are deported from our state
and there are children left behind,
that we have a rapid response team
to help those children navigate what would be something
that would be a little hard for any of us
I think to truly imagine what that'd be like.
You're in school, you're a sixth grader, right?
Your mom or dad isn't there or both of them
aren't there anymore, right?
We need as a state to be there.
I don't control immigration, right?
That is a federal issue.
Elections have consequences,
but that doesn't mean we're helpless or can't do something
to try our best to help that situation to the best we can.
-So I want to get at some of the planning
amid some of the chaos.
-Okay.
-A recent Politico piece describes a meeting
you've led a year ago.
You were Attorney General at the time
and you met with your fellow Democratic Attorney Generals
here in Seattle, and you said, We've got to get ahead of this.
We've got to start planning.
We've got to listen to what the president says
because he speaks
and sort of cues you to what's going to come next.
What's the, and you are a lifetime chess player,
what's the 3D chess move now? In other words,
how are you planning now for what's going to happen,
I don't know, the next few weeks or months,
or even next year,
and then I just kind of want to throw tariffs in there to say,
Are they baked into the budget
that we can talk about in another minute?
-A multi-part question.
So, one, you mentioned the chess thing,
so just again for the students,
so it's true that after I finished high school,
I did not go to college right away.
I tried to become a professional chess player, went to Europe.
I tell you that because being a professional chess player,
you know, may be an unlikely way to become governor,
but it worked for me, right?
But I do want to just share that with you
because I think there's a lot of pressure
for young people to take a certain path in a certain way
in a certain time frame.
And I hear that.
You know, I just want you to know that was not my life,
you know, at all.
I went to Europe, played chess professionally for a while.
I took lots of time off at different points in my life,
just to go mountain climbing, travel the country,
travel around the world,
and, you know,
I just tried my best to follow what I was most interested
in at every time.
You know, so chess, to Joni's question,
it may seem totally unrelated to my life now,
that I spent years and years and years
playing chess and neglecting my schoolwork,
but in some respects, you know,
becoming an internationally rated chess master,
I think in some ways may be the best preparation to be governor,
right, or an attorney, right? It teaches you certain skills,
right, that are actually very translatable
to the work that I do.
I'll spare you all the chess analogies I often have,
but it is true.
And so, but on this point,
one thing chess does require is it forces you
to anticipate your opponent's move.
Okay, so if Joni and I were playing a chess game,
my job is to anticipate every single move she's about to make.
If she makes a move that I did not anticipate,
that's a five-alarm fire for me, okay?
And I'm not doing anything else
until I figure out why she made that move.
Well, that's good training,
to think about what your opponent is trying to do,
and yet be very, very, very objective about that.
Okay, if you're not objective
when you're playing chess against,
at the highest level, you will lose every time.
So to Donald Trump,
a key thing from my standpoint is,
look, try to anticipate where he is going.
And if he says something on the campaign trail, guess what?
I believe that he will try and do that, okay?
And so that Politico article talked about a speech
I gave to other AGs in Seattle
where I was trying to prepare them
when he was running for president.
Hey, this guy might get elected, number one.
And number two, the time to prepare is not
after he gets elected, it is right now.
It's going through Project 2025,
literally line by line by line and drafting complaints.
There's a reason why Washington State was the first state
to take him on when he was first president, Muslim travel ban,
and the first state to beat him.
It's because the team was already working on a complaint
before he took office,
because he talked about banning Muslims from the United States.
The reason why our current AG's office was the first state
to take him on in court, it was over birthright citizenship,
and the first state to beat him in court.
It's because the civil rights division,
when I was still an AG,
literally drafted that complaint
because he said on the campaign trail
that he would try to get rid of birthright citizenship.
In other words, it wasn't an accident, okay,
that we met him in court from day one and beat him in court.
Preparation, getting ready, and handling it, right?
So.
-Well, you've had plenty of warning
that there would be heavy tariffs.
-Yes.
-And there were pretty significant tariffs
announced this week. Are those baked into the budget?
-What I would say about the budget is,
I had a big press conference about this just the other day,
is we have our budget challenges,
that's not this conversation, right?
But we do have a $16 billion budget shortfall with a B,
billion, that's a big problem.
But we also, that's a big enough problem to solve,
right, is this thing right in front of us.
But we need to solve it in a way
that keeps us financially strong
for what's coming from the federal government, okay?
Like I said, cutting billions from Medicaid.
In other words,
we have to balance this budget in a way
that involves some very, very difficult decisions
so that we can meet the federal government
when they try to hold us hostage with withholding
of federal funds, right?
I talked about earlier my job is to uphold our values as a state.
I do not want our state to be held financially hostage
by Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
That's not where we need to be, right?
That's not where we need to be.
So to your point,
like, that is trying to craft a budget
that makes some difficult choices, right?
I had a conversation
with a group I support strongly earlier today,
and I had to tell them, I'm sorry,
I cannot support what you're asking for in the budget, right?
I can't support that investment.
Because guess what?
These other things may be coming,
and we've got to balance all that out.
So I think it's less,
Joni, tariff specifically or this thing specifically
and more making sure from a fiscal standpoint we are very,
very disciplined in our budget and doing the best we can
to preserve all of our rainy day reserve funds, right?
There have been proposals that drain those funds.
Big mistake, right?
We're not, I'm not going to sign a budget that does that.
We need those rainy day reserves,
right, in case he does something, right?
A town gets destroyed a fire.
FEMA may not be there to help us out,
but we need to be there to support that community
if and when that happens, right?
Once again, that's why we need to preserve those
rainy day reserves.
So again, tough choices to get there,
but I think that's a key thing we need to do right now.
-So I watched that budget press conference
and I came away wondering something you just addressed.
-Yeah.
-How prepared will our state be this summer
for forest fires with so many cuts to the US Forest Service
and other federal agencies?
I know some of the forest workers were fired, hired back,
they're in limbo, haven't been hired yet.
But how do you make us okay for the summer?
-So I know there's been a lot of bad news
so far in this conversation,
but on that, trying to find a little bit of glass half full,
the good news is the legislature has, in recent years,
as you no doubt know,
Joni, invested significantly in fire preparedness,
significantly into that.
And so the good news is there is within
our state budget there have been dramatic upgrades
in our level of preparedness.
And that was reflected last summer, right?
That we did better last summer when it came to fires
than we have in any number of summers prior to that.
In part because of those significant investments
of having, hey, more boots on the ground
when fires break out,
to doing preparation work to avoid fires on the front end.
So the good news is we've made those investments
and I feel we're in as good a place as we can be.
That said, all the more reason
to preserve that rainy day reserve fund if, for example,
FEMA's not there when there is a natural disaster.
We are I think ranked number four
for number of natural disasters of states in the country, right?
Fire is the key reason for that.
And so there's not the money in the budget
to deal with that kind of a problem,
which is why we need to keep what we call our
rainy day reserve funds.
That's important for a lot of reasons,
our credit rating, other stuff,
but it's also important to deal with that type of thing.
-Governor, so I'm a graduate student here at Seattle U MPA,
and I also work in the City of Seattle,
and I believe in good government.
So what would you tell young people, mainly in this audience,
that plan to go into public service
but may be disheartened,
even saddened by the fact of so many harsh cuts
and even callous governing.
-I think what I'd say is we need you now more than ever,
is what I would say, right?
I mean, look, I'm old, okay, I'm 60 years old, right?
I mean, I plan on being, it's all relative.
I plan on being in this job for a while.
To you guys, I know it's old, trust me.
I remember being in college
and what 60 years old looked like, okay?
It's old. So I understand.
And so look, I plan on being governor for a long time,
but there's a limit to that, right?
And one of you needs to be governor someday or be,
hey, lands commissioner and deal with fires,
or be in public service in any number of ways that we have.
Be a public defender, be a teacher,
whatever that might be, right?
That we need it more than ever.
And this is something, you know, I communicate to my kids, right?
That hey, they need to step up, right?
That public service is important.
That everyone's got to lean into it.
And I think that's true at any time.
You know, I've often talked about
when I would speak at the law school here, you know, as an AG,
I would often encourage the law school students
to do some form of public service.
I think that's true even when times are great.
I think it's especially true now, okay,
that our country is, you know,
I'm not big for overstating things.
I try to choose my words carefully, you know,
but, you know, it's, you know, I no longer take for granted
that my kids will grow into adulthood
in the same functioning democracy that I had.
I just do not take that for granted anymore, okay?
And I just try to be clear-eyed about things in my life,
and that is certainly one of them.
And so I think the response to that is not,
well, I would hope, I understand the desire to be like,
I just don't, I can't think about that.
It's just too damn depressing, right?
It's too discouraging, right?
How could half the people in the country support someone
who believes some of these things, right?
No, I think the opposite is engage with those folks, right?
Engage in public service, lean into it.
That is the path forward. I believe that, right?
And, you know, I'm not big on the term "resistance", right,
but I believe in standing up for democracy, you know?
I believe in standing up for civil rights.
I believe in standing up for workers, right?
I believe in standing up for, you know,
a fiscally responsible budget and showing government
that works, right?
And I think that's in some ways the best anecdote,
is showing a functioning government
and public service that works
as opposed to what we're seeing in DC.
-So I just want to go back to the budget for a second.
-Oh man, okay, all right.
All right, I thought we were moving on, all right.
-We like to make some news here on our fine campus.
I watched your budget press conference the other day,
and you did, you know, concede, admit,
whatever the right word there is that
there will have to be some new revenue.
-Oh yeah. -Because all cuts is too much.
Did you want to tell us which new revenue?
-I think I will holding off on laying out the plan right here,
right now, as much as I enjoy Seattle University.
-Which is at least worse.
-But there's,
like, obviously there's a lot of conversations going on
about what the path is to balance all that out,
and it's not going to be easy, you know,
not going to be easy, and some hard choices ahead.
But I'm sure you understand we've got a few more weeks left
in the session to work that out,
but there's a lot of conversations to have.
-So since I sort of thought you might say that,
I want to go back to some of these really,
really intense cuts that are coming to our state.
Cuts in education, health services, Head Start, Medicaid.
And I don't mean this to be so naive,
but how likely is it that states like ours
can backfill federal dollars a little bit, a little,
to ease some pain that we decide is pain
we're not going to endure?
-So I think, that's I think an important question.
What I'm trying to communicate,
so I've had some conversations with legislators
on my side of the aisle
when I talk about these cuts that I think are,
it's uncertain, right, how much or how many,
but I think it is certain they are happening now
and more will come.
That much is certain.
And so when I've tried to communicate that,
Hey, we have to adopt a budget that puts us in a position
to be able to deal with some of these challenges
that may be coming.
What some have said, Hey Bob, man,
if they cut $4 billion from Medicaid, what can we do?
I'm like, No, I'm not that fatalistic, right?
That is just not my personality,
and that's not the way
that I think we should be thinking about the problem.
So I'm not suggesting if the federal government says,
We're withholding all the billions of dollars in Medicaid
that we're in a position to backfill all those?
No, we are not, right? No, we are not.
It's 27% of our budget in federal funds, 27%.
That's a lot.
We don't have those billions of dollars.
But, you know,
having dollars on hand is important for a lot of reasons.
You talk about the AG's offices.
I mentioned the public health.
They're withholding the $160 million dollars
on public health.
The AG's office is challenging that.
Okay, well guess what?
It takes time from when funds get cut off
to getting a court injunction saying, Hey Donald Trump,
you can't do that.
Having reserve funds is able to backfill for a period of time
while litigation is taking place to see
if you can stop something from happening.
So you're not laying off those 250 people,
as one example, right?
Then trying to rehire them all later on,
you can keep them on for some period of time
until hopefully the court decision goes your way.
Then you never have to make those cuts at all,
if that makes sense.
So it's not necessarily even trying to backfill all of it,
but part of it may be we're backfilling long enough
for the AG's team to go to court
and possibly get another victory
and avoid the cut from happening at all,
if that makes sense.
So there's lots of ways to think about this,
but the key is making the State of Washington
as strong financially as we can
during what's a pretty challenging budget situation.
-Governor,
and, a recent poll shows some Washington Democrats are having
second thoughts about you.
-Come on, I find that hard to believe.
-Though independents seem kind of happy,
pollster Devin Bales from Portland said,
"Ferguson is presenting more as a realist, as a pragmatist."
-Is that so bad?
-What are your thoughts about that?
-Look, I mean,
if any of you are interested in going into politics,
like, just don't worry about polls.
I'm just telling you.
I mean, honestly, I mean, it's just,
I've just got to be honest about what I think about
and what I don't think about, just going to be honest.
I've not looked at the poll.
I really don't care what the poll says, right?
My job, and I feel I've been so far successful at this, okay?
My job is, and maybe this is just advice in general,
right, is for what it's worth,
take it for what it's worth from an old guy,
is in making decisions, whatever you're doing in your life,
right, but especially if you are leading something,
an organization or a team,
right, you're going to be asked to make decisions, right?
And what I would say is, in making those decisions,
and I've observed this in other people who make decisions,
right, is that there's a lot that comes at you
information-wise for the decision, okay?
There's a lot coming at you.
If you're in politics,
you've got some people saying,
Bob, there's a poll here that says X, Y, or Z, okay?
My approach is in making that decision,
you've got to focus on the issue in front of you
that actually matters to making your decision,
and deciding what is extraneous,
what is irrelevant to your decision.
Trust me, number one on my list of things
that are irrelevant to me is what a poll says.
Okay, like, I'm just not worried about that, right?
What I've got to do is focus on what I consider to be,
and I say this to my team a lot, right,
that in any difficult decision, I'm a big believer in this,
that it's, and, they can be complicated.
And as governor, there are some decisions that I have to make,
or as AG, that are complicated.
I'll grant you that.
But even in the most complicated decisions,
I really believe this to be true,
that there is essentially in that complex decision,
there's, like, a key kernel of truth within that, right?
Like a North Star,
that if you look hard enough, you will find it, okay?
But you've got to focus on that.
And the key is to put everything else aside, and focus on that,
and make your decision based on that.
So for Donald Trump when I was AG,
lots of people had thoughts about
whether we should file lawsuits or not.
And I realized we might have a lot of litigation
against this guy, and I decided the core things are,
Do we think we have good arguments
against what he's doing?
Does it mean they're sure winners?
Just do we have good arguments.
Number two, Is what he's doing harming Washingtonians?
And number three is, As AG,
do I have the authority to bring the lawsuit?
And I decided to answer those three questions were yes, yes,
and yes, then I filed the lawsuit every single time
without exception, okay?
If there was a no in there, I did not.
That was my criteria.
Trust me, there's a lot of polls about what was good
or what was bad, but those can't dictate.
-Yeah,
but you do seem to be making a conscious track to the middle
in things like ferry boats when they're electric or diesel,
and some of the things you've said about emergency powers.
I mean, lots of governors are doing this right now, too.
-I don't think it's the middle
to say we should restore our ferry fleet to
where it was pre-pandemic.
If anyone here takes ferries, you know what I'm talking about,
right, okay, right?
We're a broken system, right?
I don't think anyone who uses ferries
think it's the middle to say,
Hey, let's actually restore our ferry service to
where it needs to be.
If that means we're delaying conversion to electric
of some ferries to get there
so folks can get to their doctor's appointments,
get, their kids can get to school,
so they can just live their lives
like I live driving I-5 today.
People live their lives on the ferries.
That's how it works for them, right?
Then that to me was the North Star in that decision.
That was the North Star. It's restore the ferry service.
I don't think that's any other than just providing a service.
-But, I mean, it's more middle than your predecessor
who was very, very committed to the electrics.
-It's, look, I deeply respect Governor Inslee.
We're close.
It's not, I just don't think of it that way, right?
I get people want to label.
I get it. Believe me, I do.
My whole life is people want to label Bob here, there.
I get that.
It's just not the way I think, right?
It's just like, Hey, it's not a middle thing
or a left thing or a right thing to say,
Hey, let's get that ferry service where needs to be.
Trust me.
I've met, it's that I don't think that's way
ferry users think about it.
I really don't. Yeah, I really don't.
-So I want to make sure we have time
for a constitutional question. -Okay.
-Advertised in our title and all that.
-All right. -So Governor Ferguson,
when/or if the US Supreme Court rules
against the Trump administration,
I bet you've heard this one before,
and the administration refuses to comply, what happens next?
Isn't that the most feared constitutional crisis scenario?
Or do you have another one,
maybe something like a third term?
-Those may be related, right?
I mean, you may have a Supreme Court decision
saying you can't run for a third term
and that could happen anyway.
So I would, I'm really speaking from a legal perspective, right?
That's my background, that's my training.
And so I do believe that any president
who ignores a ruling from a federal judge,
particularly the United States Supreme Court,
look, you absolutely have
a constitutional crisis at that point.
Absolutely, 100%, underline it, write it down in red.
That's the very definition of a constitutional crisis, right?
In the 56 cases we defeated Donald Trump
in his last go-round,
the administration followed the court's order every single time.
Whether that was a local judge here,
a court of appeals somewhere else,
or the US Supreme Court, they did every single time.
But there have been warning signs, right,
about how they've started to respond
to some judicial opinions already.
There have been warning signs about what
the vice president has said, right,
about the courts that, you know, there's no way to sugarcoat it,
that have me really deeply concerned.
Have they absolutely crossed that line yet?
I don't think so, but they are right up to the line,
is where I would describe it.
And that's just a place where, you know,
if that were to happen,
you'd have a true constitutional crisis, yeah.
-But any insight into how that would roll forward?
-Look, you're in relatively uncharted territory
at that point, so there's really nobody
who's got a great answer to that, right?
I was talking to my kids about this literally just last night,
and was in the car ride with my daughter.
It was, we were talking about this
and, you know, I was trying to share with her
was that a not insignificant part of our structure,
our system, our democracy is trusting
that elected leaders will follow certain norms
that we believe in, right, that are the basis for our country.
One of those norms is, hey,
a federal judge says you've got to do X,
you do X, right, that's a norm.
The courts don't have an army to enforce it,
that's not the way it works, right?
You've got to rely on presidents, on governors,
on people following that norm in order
for this experiment to work, right?
And so that's what makes it so challenging.
If someone chooses not to follow that norm,
for lack of a better word,
it is not easy to see the pathway out
of that constitutional crisis.
-Governor, one group of people
who have become the face of government cuts is veterans.
Six in ten veterans voted for Trump last year,
but now we are hearing about significant layoffs in the VA,
slashing of veteran health programs.
What can Washington State do about it?
I mean, this all seems so unfair, to put it lightly.
-Yeah.
And look, it's veterans, it's workers
who are putting out our fires.
It's public health folks. It's you name it, right?
But the veterans, I'm happy to chat about.
My dad was a veteran, both my grandfathers were.
It's a big part of my family's history, to put it mildly.
And so it's, well, I mean, I think your specific question is,
hey, what can Washington State do in light of that.
So, you know, we have, of course,
our own veterans program.
We have a cabinet Office of Veterans Affairs.
So we actually have a state agency
that assists veterans, right? That exists.
I was in a meeting with,
we were visiting the Spokane Veterans Home just last weekend
I think I was there, right?
Meeting with veterans at a home
that the state helps provide assistance for veterans
who need assistance after they retire.
We have those homes across the state.
So there are things we do to provide benefits for veterans,
housing for veterans,
unhoused veterans getting the help they need,
shelter they need, assistance with dealing with PTSD
if that's what they're dealing with.
You get the idea.
There are all sorts of local funds and state
funds and programs that do that work.
And this is yet another example we talked about earlier, right?
As cuts come in and those impacts are felt by
in this case veterans,
but you could fill in the blank
for any number of workers or Washingtonians
being impacted, that's where we have to see
how we can do more with less
to make sure we've got reserve funds that can,
as things come up, see what we can do to fill in the gaps.
That's not going to be easy.
You know, I want to be straightforward
with everybody about that.
And, but that is what we're trying to do as a state.
-Governor, as we all contemplate a leaner federal government,
it's easy to want to tap philanthropists to see
if they can pay for certain small things.
Is this a good idea,
or does it present too much peril for the philanthropists
and the programs they assist?
-And sorry, the first part of your question, Joni, is just -
-Well, it's sort of easy to want to say,
Well, can't some of the tech zillionaires pay for a few
of our of our programs, and so the idea is that a good idea?
Should, is it good for the programs
and also it has some drawbacks for the philanthropists?
-It's, look it, it's going to,
I think I talked about it earlier, right,
with the threats that are coming in,
it requires everybody, governors, students,
billionaires, right?
I mean, we're all in it,
we all have different tools at our disposal to help out, right?
We all have different tools.
I have certain tools that are different maybe
than some of you, right?
You guys may have different tools than maybe I have.
A billionaire has, trust me,
some tools that I do not have, right?
And so, but the key is we all have to utilize what we have.
And so, yes, you know, as you might imagine,
as a governor, I'm in communication
with all sorts of folks across the state, right?
I visit veterans homes, I have conversations with folks
who are a lot wealthier than I am, right?
And, but those conversations are all geared
towards solving the problems that we're facing.
The other thing I will say is that leaning into more,
and this is even sort of beyond philanthropy,
but take issues like housing.
We need more affordable housing, right?
We need more affordable rents.
We need these things as a state.
Our state's becoming too unaffordable
for too many people, including, right,
the generations that's coming up.
So, hey, you know,
when I'm having conversations during the campaign
about affordable housing,
or when I'm on the campaign with folks like heads of Microsoft,
the conversation they want to talk about is,
hey, housing's a big issue to them.
They need to have housing that folks
who want to work at Microsoft
can live relatively close to Microsoft,
so they can go to work and do the work that they do.
They don't just say, Hey, Bob,
will you solve this when you become governor?
They say, we want to help.
We're looking for public-private partnerships,
because this helps Microsoft.
If we do this, if we invest with public dollars,
that's a good thing, not just for the state,
not just for you, it's good for Microsoft.
That is, pardon the cliché, a win-win.
So I think we need that on multiple levels of,
and I have been giving some thought
to if things truly do become dire
with the federal government,
which I just, you know, it is possible, everybody, right?
It's possible, right?
And, you know, I hope to God it doesn't happen,
but that is possible,
and so we will need to lean into folks who have more resources,
see how they're willing to help on whatever the issue is.
We talked about some of them, and there are many others.
Hey, are there other things
we can do from the philanthropy standpoint to be of assistance?
And look, my sense is the folks who I talk to,
you know, whatever their station is in life, they want to help.
They understand the threat that we're under.
-So we have time for a quick question and a quick answer.
-Okay.
-Because I'm following that timeline.
-You got it.
-Governor, many universities rely on federal tax dollars,
including and especially the University of Washington.
-Yep.
-UW is heavily reliant on medical research money,
and you spoke at the Stand Up for Science protest last month.
-Yep.
-What exactly can governors do to protect these important
and life-saving measures?
-So there's a few things.
So number one, sort of beyond what I've already said, right,
about from our budget standpoint,
but, you know, there are, they're speaking out,
they're showing up at a rally.
A governor can do that, you can do that.
There's also, we have a federal delegation obviously, right,
that we're very lucky in our state
to just to mention our two US Senators Maria Cantwell,
Patty Murray, fantastic US Senators.
They know their way around DC.
Trust me, right, I'm in, I meet with them.
We communicate,
we talk about how we can coordinate our efforts.
What can they do in DC?
How can we be helpful here in Washington State?
All of that is taking place.
The legal front is huge, right?
Our AG's office, I mean, just so you know,
I mean, Washington State,
this is not sort of false praise for that office.
We have the best AG's office for standing up
to the Trump administration.
It's just a fact, you know, it's not an opinion.
They are very, very good at what they do.
We built that team up during my AG years.
They are very, very good at what they do.
Their success speaks for itself.
And so we have tools at our disposal
to make sure that the federal government's following the law
and to make sure that, you know, we are coordinated from a state,
we're working with our federal partners,
to do what we can to try
and minimize those impacts back there.
The thing I'll add on this is, as a final thought,
is on issues like that, the University of Washington
is not the only campus obviously facing challenges there.
There are campuses in deep red states
with very conservative Republican senators
who have their own concerns about what is happening
to their institutions on public health,
for public education, right?
For hospitals, you get the idea, right?
So I don't want to be overly optimistic,
but the fact that that pain, you know, that's not the right word,
but is being felt not just here.
That is in other jurisdictions as well,
where those representatives in those red states,
they see that as well, right?
And that there just has to be,
if we're going to get through this,
some level of Congress reasserting itself.
They control the purse, for God's sakes, right?
That's how the system works.
I remember that from college.
You know, I was playing chess all the time.
I still remember that, right? I do remember that, right?
They control that, but they are abdicating.
I'm not talking about our,
our delegation is fantastic, I want to be clear.
But Congress, come on, right? I mean, come on.
And that is not the way the system works.
And so that, there needs to be a coming together of Congress
to reassert its proper role in our system.
-Okay, so we are out of time.
-Okay. -And we're going to wrap.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
[ Applause ]
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