 Good morning, John. I'm at the office. It's too early. Hey, Nick and Nicole. Hi. Hi, we're doing something weird today We're gonna show you in just a second Hello Good, how are you doing? This is Superintendent Juneau. She is running for Congress to represent the state of Montana You're talking to my brother right now. Oh, hi. How are you? So we do all shooting down here. Oh, yeah That looks good Thank you Super official. This is my audience. Hi audience and also my brother. Hi, John. I Wanted to talk to you and I'm so grateful for you for doing this because I don't really want to talk about Policy or about your campaign or what you're gonna do from Montana when you're in Washington Which I imagine is most of what you talk about which is good I just want to talk about like government being an elected official Which you are right now and you know how things have gotten very partisan and how that affects You running for office and you as a person also because I think often we times we forget the politicians or people But before we get into any of that, I'm gonna give you a pop quiz. All right I think you will know the answers to all of these ones. I hope so. You are running for U.S. House of Representatives and and that is a House of Congress So members of the House of Representatives do what they make laws and the final question the pop quiz is how do you expect to afford the rents in DC if you win that's gonna be a tough one probably get roommates and have to figure out who my friends in Congress are going to be But you got all the questions, right? This is a good. Oh awesome. Thank you so much. Everyone gets a goat Everyone get you guys don't get good. I never shoot campus They actually that they've been doing a lot of work registering voters and they have a boat go Is it a live goat? It is a live goat Like if you vote you get to like pet the goat I don't know I was just a vote goat that goes around in time to draw people over so then you can register them to vote Now we are on to everyone's favorite topic Which is their own self so we're gonna talk about you So you currently hold an elected office. You are the superintendent of public instruction Which is just like the head of the head. Yeah, it's the head of all the schools in Montana Basically every four years people vote for this position. It's one of our statewide offices per our state constitution What's your campaign for the statewide office? Was that significantly different than what you're experiencing now running for a More high profile. Yes, totally, you know, the issues are bigger. There's more scrutiny, you know, there's all there's a there's a larger Microscope on you you can also get a bigger megaphone and so that's good, too I imagine there's also tough parts of that like not a lot of time scheduled for sleep Also, there's a lot of people who are going to be saying nasty things about you. I'm just curious what the worst part is It is that I think it's the negativity and politics right now It's the divisiveness good ideas sometimes don't get to be discussed because we draw ideological lines and then talk about You know fear-based sorts of issues rather than actually talking about issues that matter So is it safe to say That during this campaign you kind of came out So introduce my partner you have somebody in your life and they They need to be there to support you Did you feel like that was something that you needed to do for political reasons as well as personal ones? Oh, yeah, I think it was a mixture of both people expect access They want to know who their candidates are and I think stepping up to this level from superintendent to Congress it was important to make sure things were out there because of the negativity that can sometimes happen And it really hasn't been it become an issue which is great I think particularly when we look at montan and we you know the stereotypes around our state And it's people it actually hasn't become A political issue which I think speaks volumes for Our state in our country in the direction we're moving. I was on your twitter yesterday. It says in your bio 54th generation montan and which made me laugh. I just want to know how did you've come to that particular number? I just figure it's a long time and You know it can try to disprove it but it's sort of like American and people have been it Here before America was a country and it's important to bring that aspect of history to this race as well If you aren't that tuned in mostly what you hear about government is the most dysfunctional place in america We have very strong local government and I'm worried about the future in which young people aren't as interested in that yeah Because they see government as dysfunctional or because they just see it as like an unpleasant task to try and get into that For every message you get in every letter you get that says I hate you And you're doing the wrong thing and you're horrible You get three or four that are really good or you run into people where who say my kid would not have graduated We're not for graduation matters montana and yep, you're gonna always get the haters, but um, you know the good stuff Always outweighs those I believe you I guess Yeah, you should What do you think politicians can do to make it feel like to put the government Like the running of our country ahead of winning the election be present 90% of politics is showing up and you show up where people are gathered and you listen and you know You put aside your partisan hat and you actually listen to people about what are your issues? Why are they challenging and how can we make them better? I mean that's really the function of government is to make Things better and and that's why elections matter really does matter who sits in those seats that Can actually get down and do the business of good government. How terrifying is a debate? Oh, it seems so scary. It is. I mean it is something where I mean you kind of have to guess on what you're going to get asked It's always a curveball. You never know getting up on that stage. It's something I mean you are definitely awake Last debate actually had an audience question if you're elected, how will you help lgbtq people in the country? That sort of was a new question. We hadn't been asked in previous debates. And so my answer was number one get elected Not fair it's very fair. So I guess my last question is just how do you uh How do you help Americans believe in government? Well, I think number one get elected. I mean, I'm not naive about you know, there's a lot that needs to be fixed in government And we need to really start moving away from such divisive politics But through my life and through my role as an elected official, I know good things can happen And so I do I'm optimistic and I think most people who run for office They want to make sure that things get better for the people that they represent You're stepping up you're putting yourself on the line. You're opening yourself up for scrutiny But you're also opening yourself up to have real conversations with people And when you're elected to make a difference and make a positive difference for the people who elected you And I think that's really powerful. Well, thank you very much. Yeah, thanks was fun. Um, john I'll see you on tuesday Which is how I end my video John there are so many serious arguments that need to be had so many issues that need to be discussed that it can sometimes feel Hard to justify just having a conversation with a person who was being voted on to be in a public office As if they are a person But I think that it's really important to try and do to imagine these people as people especially at this moment When the information silos and the voter die communication strategies are combining to create The most extreme partisanship i've ever seen in my lifetime The result of all of this is that no one ever talks about the things that work And so everybody thinks that everything's broken, but it's not yes Things need to be maintained and we all need to work to do that maintenance But that doesn't mean that it's never been worth in that we're losing and that everything is crashing down around us Americans humans we have problems right now But we are good at taking on problems. I obviously cut a lot out of this interview The full interview was like a half an hour long. I would love it if you would go watch the whole thing We got deeper into several of the topics from this video and then talked about stuff that isn't in this video at all I thought it was a fascinating conversation and I hope that you will as well You can watch that video here Uh, click there or there's a link in the description And of course as a final reminder educational videos are exempt from the time limit So stop talking about punishments in the comments