 Good morning, John. It's been almost two years since our last big election here in the US. In the Montana during that election, a weird thing happened. While Donald Trump was winning 70% of the vote, we had a governor who got reelected with 54% of the vote who was a Democrat. And that just seems a little bit like something that I don't understand and that I would like explain to me. I have got, coming into my office today, an expert on this topic. I think probably one of the preeminent experts on this topic. Governor Steve Bullock, why are you in my office? You're getting my script. Stop reading my script. I can't read the script. Where do you look? Right here or here? Yeah, I mean, people won't be able to tell the difference. It's Governor Steve Bullock, the governor of my state. Hello. How do you like my office? If all of America in the world could see it all. They can. They can only see this before. He recently made some headlines when the FCC was spoopooing on net neutrality. And this is a big deal in my line of work. And Montana, I was sort of surprised, was the first state to come up and say, well, no, let's have a use on an executive order saying, let's have some protections, at least here in the state of Montana, to maintain that neutrality. Why? And how does that work? What we did is said, if you're going to sell internet services to the state of Montana, you not only have to have a free and open internet for Montana, but for all Montana. You're not saying that they can't do it? They can block and throttle all they want. But that just means they can't sell services to the state of Montana. Or now, the state of New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, Vermont, as other governors have done the same thing. Did they base that legislation off of what you wrote? They basically took our same executive order. And we even provided for any governor, you can just click and fill in a template to do so. How this came about, though, was pretty interesting. Well, my staff came out and said, your daughter is calling through your main switchboard. And I'm like, why would Caroline call my main switchboard? So I pick it up. And she had called our congressional representatives voicing her concern and some of her friends about repealing net neutrality. And my first answer was, I'm sorry, honey, I can't do anything. This is a federal issue. But that got me thinking, no, actually, the states could take the lead on this when the administration is trying to roll it back. You can thank Caroline for saving the internet. Thanks, Caroline. I've written in my notes here, Montana Red State. You governor, how? That's what my notes say. So you know what I mean. I'm legitimately very curious about this from several angles. Like, one, I believe in pushing good progressive agendas and having you in charge of the state of Montana really helps with that. And functionally helps a lot of people. Second, I think that we have a problem with division in this country and it's getting much worse. And I hope that you can provide me with some hope. First of all, how I got there and how I govern isn't all that different. Those are kind of the same thing to you. Meaning that I show up. I listen. I engage with people. I don't just try to find people that share all of my same thoughts. Well, you don't have that luxury. You can't quite do that in Montana, can you? What do you want? You want a safe community. You want clean air and clean water. Good job. Roof over your head. So those are actually the values that most people have. That's what we ought to be talking about from a public policy standpoint. We actually have to talk to people. Showing up matters a lot. Would it be better for all of us if we were trying to win everyone instead of just trying to mobilize the base? Yes. Yes. Well, you're never going to win everyone. Of course, you're never going to. But try, but make your case. Instead of just abandoning whole sections of the electorate, say like, I am out here for you. Nationally, I think that's exactly what we need to do. We need to listen and we need to persuade. The idea of winning isn't about micro-targeting, finding this group or this person that fundamentally agrees with everything and drag them to the polls. The idea is actually to engage in that public sphere and say, here is why I will be fighting for you. 20% of people who voted for you also voted for Donald Trump. Is that seem impossible to you? Not at all. Not at all, because I think in this highly polarized system, yet too many people say, oh, what's wrong with those voters as opposed to what's wrong with us or candidates if we're not actually speaking to those voters. And I know that 20% that also voted for Donald Trump, they may not agree with me on everything. Well, my wife or my children don't agree with me on everything. But I think they fundamentally believe that I would be fighting for them. I'd be listening to them. I worry a lot about the erosion of faith in press and in government. And I think a lot of people that run for office are running against government, saying government is so horrible. Look, there are inefficiencies. There are ways to make it better, but you ought to be running to be part of the solution. And I don't disagree. I mean, the deli legitimization, if that's even a word. If it's not, it ought to be. I think deligitimization is a word, but I think the thing you said it's not. The tearing down of the media. A hashtag fake news for anything that he might disagree with. I mean, that's not the way we run a representative democracy. So you've run for office a couple of times, a few times. I have. It looks from the outside terrible to traveling on the time you're away from your family, but also you can drag through the mud. Everything is public. Does it suck? This isn't the time to launch Hank Green for governor, based on the way that you phrase that. So the best advice I ever got was actually from a Republican. He was a guy named Tom Rage. He said, you run to win, but you win to run. So you run for office to win, but you win to run government. I know that we have kids in publicly funded preschools now because of our work or health care. Now understand the fact that, yeah, it's horrible. And you're focused on what you can do. It makes some of the challenging parts a little bit less challenging. Sounds like a kind of unique job that maybe you don't really know how to do when you show up first. Like, is there a training course or like a private discord channel just for governors to talk about governor stuff? No, this is just between you and I. Who do you call when you're like, I don't actually know 100% how to governor right now. Yeah, your peer group is small. When you first get elected, there's something called, well, I call it baby governor school. They send you down and maybe how to stand like a governor or talk like a governor. Who's they? Who's doing this? National Governor Association. Okay. There's a National Governors Association. I was right. And I'm about to become the head, the chairman of the National Governor Association come this summer. You're in your second term and you're ready to leave. About six years. I got elected to be in charge of it all. So learn some from my peers. And then what you try to do is surround yourself with really good people. Listen hopefully as much as you talk. You start out just drinking from fire hose. And it's not without a challenge. I'm very interested in having more young people interested in running for office and being part of government. What would you say to people who might not have considered that? Or maybe you're thinking about it and like advice. I mean, there is no magic age to get involved. First of all, like we have a state legislator in Montana that hadn't graduated high school when he got elected. There are so many things that you can do growing up. But I know that I impact people's lives. Be willing to take that step. You may fail. But I've learned more from my setbacks probably than my success. You are a Democrat in a gun culture state. We need to have a gun discussion in this country. Can you give some insight into how to like bring people into that conversation rather than just sort of the institutions that are trying to control people's perspectives? You know, I talked earlier about sort of how we share values. There was this group, Pew, that did this big research project just last year and said that two-thirds of the gun owners, one of the main reasons why they own it, is to keep themselves or their family or their community safe. And they don't trust the government's ability to do it. Most folks that want some restrictions, they want to keep themselves and their community, their family safe. They don't trust the government's ability to do it with all these firearms out there. So I think that there's more commonality than we would think. Now we're not going to solve all gun violence, but a public health approach right with cars is, we put in seatbelts, I didn't quite get there, we put in airbags, didn't quite get there, but we continue to approve. Like we know that if we did universal background checks, we know that it could make a meaningful difference. There's red flag laws, the idea that family member of law enforcement sees somebody at a point where there could be a danger. The ability to go petition according to take their gun for a period of time. We know that there are things that can be done. You know, you'd asked earlier about young people getting involved. Parkland, Florida, students may actually fundamentally change. And when we saw in Montana, students walking out, just in recognition and protest. So maybe this will finally be the time where the grown-ups are listening to the kids. What are you most afraid of, like in terms of, not in terms of like your own personal existential dread? The United States has always been the place that everyone looks to as the beacon of hope, the beacon of opportunity. In some respects, we are abdicating our role as the international leader. And I can say that from everything from climate to coalitions where we're trying to do peacekeeping. I worry, as you had mentioned too, about the divisiveness in the system. And look, everybody's life isn't consumed with what happens in government. But if government isn't working, it can negatively impact everybody's life. What are you most worried about? Um, hey, I'm not, you're not supposed to ask questions. This is a remarkable, like, that I got to talk to you. And that you got to see my family. Thank you so much for coming by. I know that you're, I imagine, super busy. That was very cool. It was my pleasure for sure. So really appreciate it. That was fun. Yeah. If you want to watch more of my interview with Governor Bullock, where we talk more about what it's like to be governor, voting, and what we're afraid of, stuff like that. I've taken some of the bits that I took out of this, and put it up on Hank's channel. This was a fascinating and cool thing to be able to do. As the governor was leaving, he said a thing that I've been thinking about ever since. He said that if you win by writing off everybody who disagrees with you and only pulling the people who really deeply agree with you to the polls, then maybe you win the election, but also maybe you lose the ability to govern. We might be seeing what that looks like right now. But if government stops working, yes, that hurts everybody, but it especially hurts the people who need help the most. John, educational videos are exempt from time limits, and I will see you on Tuesday. I should snap shut my daughter. So I only snapped shut with two people, and that's my two dogs. So did you already snap me, or should I say hi or something? Oh yeah, why don't you say it? Hello. Their names are Carolina and Alex. Hello Carolina and Alex. This is weird. But we passed one of the most progressive campaign disclosure laws. Oh, she just scored. Are you serious? Travis. Travis! Should I just start swearing a lot if we want to come back? Yeah. Well, what you want to do, you have to be relatable to the youths. So if you could just like, I don't know, say lit.