- [Narrator] Funding for "Governors' Perspectives" with Kent Manahan is made possible by Seton Hall University, Seton Hall School of Law, and by Connell Foley LLP.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) On the heels of the Democratic National Convention in August, some 200 Republicans who worked for former President George Bush, the late Senator John McCain, and Senator Mitt Romney endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

Many in the group called Republicans for Harris-Walz agree that despite ideological differences with Harris, they're urging voters in their words "To recognize the significant threats Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump poses to the country."

Mayor of Mesa, Arizona John Giles became the first incumbent Republican to publicly endorse Harris.

- It's important to me that that we not go through the chaos of another Trump presidency, but I am genuinely excited about the prospects of Kamala Harris being our president.

- [Kent] Others who include former members of Trump's cabinet... - Any elected official needs to meet some basic criteria.

They need to be able to put country over self.

They need to have a certain level of integrity and principle.

They need to be able to reach across the aisle and bring people together and unite the country.

And look, Donald Trump doesn't meet those marks for me.

- [Kent] Former members of Congress... - I'm Adam Kinzinger and I am proud to be in the trenches with you as part of this sometimes awkward alliance that we have to defend truth, defend democracy, and decency.

- [Kent] Former Republican governors and state officials have voiced their concern that the GOP now acts more like a cult worshiping a convicted felon.

- The contrast is pretty stark between the seasoned district attorney and attorney General and the convicted felon.

Convicted not by a military tribunal, but by a jury of his own peers.

- No matter who wins this election, we all know there're gonna be lawsuits after them.

So you wanna have people in the positions that oversee the outcomes of election who have agreed that they will uphold the rule of law and respect the Constitution.

- I am a Republican, but tonight I stand here as an American.

(audience cheering and applauding) An American that cares more about the future of this country than the future of Donald Trump.

- And now, even more Republicans have crossed party lines.

About a hundred former national security and foreign policy officials signed a letter publicly calling Donald Trump unfit to serve.

The November 5th presidential election just might be the most important election of our lifetime, as many pundits contend.

And it's also likely to be a very close contest.

In the 2020 race, American voters cast 158 million ballots.

Yet the winner, president Joe Biden, was ultimately elected by only 43,000 votes across just a handful of states.

Now, like then, every single vote will count, including those of Republicans for Harris, some of whom will not only vote for the Democratic nominee, but will hit the campaign trail for her too.

- Because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris in this election.

(audience cheering and applauding) - [Kent] Not long, after her father, former Republican vice President Dick Cheney endorsed Harris too.

But this Instagram endorsement from Pop star Taylor Swift could ultimately mean not only additional fundraising, but also the potential for new voter registration in those all important swing states.

With us now to discuss the Republicans for Harris effort, former New Jersey Governor Kristi Whitman.

Governor, welcome to the program.

- Thank you.

- Good to have you here again.

Governor, you signed up early to support Harris.

Others followed and then still more.

I want to ask you though your thoughts when you heard that former Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney was gonna support Harris, and then her father, the former Vice President, Bush's vice President Dick Cheney, did the same in support of Harris.

What was your reaction?

- I was delighted.

That was a big step for the former vice president, particularly, I mean, Liz Cheney had staked her heart.

She'd made very clear where she stood quite a while ago when she was part of the January 6th committee.

So it was pretty clear where she was.

But to get her father to come along, that's a big step.

But it speaks volumes to the danger that Donald Trump poses because you certainly can't gain, say the conservative credentials of Dick Cheney.

I mean, he is a conservative who's been a Republican all his life and been very loyal to the party.

So if he says this is where he's going, it's a very strong message to the Republicans who are still unsure.

You know, they just have never pulled a lever for a Democrat.

And so they find it very hard to consider that.

But if Dick Cheney says he's gonna do it, that gives a lot of permission to people who have been waiting for something like that.

- So Liz Cheney has not only endorsed Harris for president, but she's out there campaigning.

Your thoughts though on how effective can she be, given the fact that she was co-chair of the select committee investigating the January 6th attack on the CapitOl.

- She's very effective.

And what she says is spot on.

And it's said in a non-confrontational way, just a flat out, you know, this is not about party politics, this is about being someone who upholds the rule of law.

It's about our democracy.

This is about something far more important than just a party label.

And I think she does give permission to a lot of people, and particularly to women.

She's a very strong role model.

So it's good to have her out there saying what she's saying in the way that she's saying it.

- So this is a permission slip for Republicans?

- Yes, yeah, very much so.

I mean, you look at the number of Republicans who served in Donald Trump's administration who are now saying he is unfit to be in that office.

And that's starting to really pile up, and people are gonna start taking and paying real attention to this.

It's taken a while because they've been so deep into the Trump world for so long.

He's so dominated the news and he still does with outrageous things.

But people are getting to know Kamala Harris.

They didn't know her before.

And I had so wished during the debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance, when JD Vance kept saying, well, she's had four years, why didn't she do this, that and the other, to have Tim Walz turn to him and say, "I guess you don't understand the office you're running for," it's vice president.

You don't set the policy.

You don't do anything that the president doesn't tell you you can do.

And you know, that the staff around both the president and the vice president are very protective of their principles.

And the White House doesn't want the vice president sneaking in.

The staff doesn't want it, so she's got a very limited role.

- Well, tell me your thoughts about how Republicans for Harris is going.

Are you getting a lot of support from the Harris campaign?

- We're getting a lot of support from the Harris campaign.

- In what way?

- Just in helping set up things and having her go to some rallies, I don't know, I'm gonna be in Philadelphia next week, I guess in the middle of the week for a Republicans for Harris.

And I don't know whether she'll be there or not, but she's doing her thing.

Republicans for Harris are doing theirs.

We're all over.

They're having rallies all over the country.

I haven't been to lots of them, but you know, my name is on that list as a supporter.

And I'm a strong supporter.

I'd love to see a woman in the White House too.

What bothers me on this campaign, besides all the lies and the other stuff that's going on, is the fact that it's very clear that there's sexism as part of it.

That there are a lot of white men and some Black men who have a really hard time seeing a woman in that position.

And I don't know why.

- You were the first and only woman governor of New Jersey, one of the most powerful governorships in the country.

What do you think voters want in a woman commander in chief?

- Well, I think they wanna be assured that that person, Kamala Harris for instance, is going to be strong.

And you saw that, I mean, anybody that's looked at her record, who has watched and seen the clips, the kinds of things she did when she was attorney general, when she was a federal prosecutor.

She took on drug lords.

She took on the illegal immigrants.

I mean, she was tough.

That record is there.

And if you listen to her today, listen to the speeches that she gives, the policy positions that she's taken, she's strong.

And I think that's what people, that has to be part of why there's this, I don't know, tension some people have about thinking as a woman as president.

Although why when you have Great Britain, Israel, India, and a host of developing countries that have had women prime ministers, women leaders, and yet we United States, the greatest democracy, have never had it.

It's amazing to me and very disappointing.

- Well, governor, you supported Hillary Clinton in 2016.

You supported Joe Biden in 2020.

You're now supporting Kamala Harris in this election cycle.

Are you being shunned by the Republican party?

You still call yourself a card carrying Republican.

Are you being shunned at this point by the party in general?

- They dismissed me a long time ago.

I'm a rhino, I'm one of those terrible rhinos.

I'm a Republican because the Forward Party that I co-chair is not on the ballot in New Jersey as a recognized party.

But I will switch once we become a recognized party.

- So tell us about the Forward Party and your effort, co-founded with Andrew Yang who ran as a Democrat for the presidency.

How is it going and are you going to be supporting Kamala Harris in this election cycle?

Will the Forward Party step forth?

- No, Forward Party is not playing at the presidential level.

Our focus is really on state and local.

I mean, we do have, we have two sitting congressmen, one from Utah, one from North Carolina, who are already formally aligned as sitting congressmen with Forward.

There are Democrat Forwardist and Republican Forwardist.

And we have some senatorial, US Senate candidates.

But our real focus is state and local.

And that's because no matter, we're building a party, we're building a third party.

I think we've talked before about the fact that over 500,000 offices across this country, any year, any given election cycle, 70% of them are uncontested, which means voters don't have a choice.

And we just think that's bad.

People ought to have a choice.

One party government is just not good.

And yet, if you look around the states, that's what we have in so many states and so many congressional districts have been drawn for one party or the other.

And so people who are not of the ruling party, as it were, don't bother to vote.

And that's wrong too.

And of those offices, the 70% that are uncontested, any given year, 5 to 10% of those are never even filled.

And we believe every office should be filled.

So we're concentrating on those state and local offices.

We believe it's up to the states and the candidates to decide, well, what's right for my state or my constituency, not what a party tells you you have to do or don't do.

Because the parties, that's what they do.

They have such tight control.

- What do you and other Republicans that you talk to think of Project 2025, which is a blueprint by the Heritage Foundation to give a script for the next Republican president of the United States to overhaul the executive branch?

- That's terrifying.

I mean, it's terrifying if you read it, and people should look at it because that's what they're gonna do.

Don't believe when Trump says, oh, I don't know anything about it.

JD Vance wrote the preface to 2025.

I mean, he is the one who would be carrying this out.

And you know what's going on now, which I think is unconscionable, Donald Trump undermining what's happening in the states that have been so badly hit by the hurricanes, both of them, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, by saying FEMA's giving money away to illegal immigrants instead of to the people who need it.

And you don't ask for the $750 that you can get just to tide you over, which FEMA gives you, 'cause they're gonna take your land.

That is part of a concentrated effort to undermine the public's confidence in government, period.

The end.

So that when he gets into office, he can start to dismantle and no one's gonna say anything 'cause they're gonna say, right, well, I mean, government can't do anything 'cause he's told us for years that they've gotten it all wrong.

It's really scary when you think of how easy it can be to overturn our democracy.

- It's obvious you feel very strongly about Republicans for Harris and the movement going on that you're a part of.

Governor, are you prepared to say or is there discussion going on that this group would continue to work for change in the Republican party?

Can the Republican Party be changed and will that work go on after this election cycle?

- Well, I'll be working on Forward and that's different 'cause Forward is its own party, because I now believe- - You won't stay connected with this group.

Is there discussion about that?

- No, no.

I mean, I haven't had any discussion about it.

They might have.

But no, I'm gonna be with Forward because I believe we need to have a third party to keep the two major parties honest.

- But wouldn't this be a route, this effort going on now, to change- - I have tried so many times to change the Republican party from within it.

I mean, I have started groups that have worked on that.

And that's what happened to Andrew, too.

And we were just part- - Andrew Yang.

- Andrew Yang, yes.

The co-founder We both tried to work to get our parties back to the center from within this existing system.

There's no way to do that because the two major parties have such a strong hold on everything that they don't want that challenge.

And they put all kinds of hurdles in front.

I mean, it's almost impossible to become a third party here in New Jersey.

They make it very, very difficult.

Some states they change the rules as soon as you start, they see a third party starting to take off.

They change the rules and make it even more difficult to become a recognized party.

- Do you see the fact that JD Vance is the vice presidential candidate on the Trump ticket as an indication that MAGA just has the future of this Republican party in its hands?

Tell me about that.

- I do, I unfortunately do.

I mean, I grew up on the Republican party.

My parents were part of it, my grandparents.

I hate to say it, but yes, there isn't a Republican party today.

It's all about Trump.

It's a cult.

- No more core principles of the party.

- They don't seem to have any.

They're all whatever Donald Trump tells 'em to do.

There'll be core principles if Donald Trump gets in and JD Vance's nick one and that'll be 2025, Project 2025.

And the real question here that people have to ask themselves, would you want a partisan politician deciding what's safe for you in drinking water, what's safe for you in the air you breathe?

'Cause that's what they're talking about doing.

Getting rid of the civil servants who have been serving honestly and well for years, and know the business, who are the professionals, the scientists who know what to look for, and replacing them with people with a political agenda.

That makes me very nervous.

- Tell me your thoughts about the fact that Kamala Harris has said that she would appoint a Republican as part of her cabinet.

What do you think about that?

- Well, I think that's a very open effort on her part to say, I'm gonna be president for everybody, for all people.

And if I can find a good person who wears the label of the other party, that's fine.

Or is an independent as well, that's fine.

I want the best people.

That's what I did.

I mean, I got grief from the party here in New Jersey when I first came in because I didn't kick out every Democrat who was in office in positions in the state government 'cause I said, if they're doing their job and they're doing a good job, why not leave them?

I mean, don't just throw them out.

- What does that demonstrate, do you think, to an administration and how it's going to govern?

- I think from her point of view, what it means is she is gonna govern for everybody.

And she's willing to listen to people with different points of view.

And that's what's important because it's so easy, particularly for the presidency to get siloed off.

You have a core group of staff around you that protect you from everything.

And sometimes they slip into that process of telling you what you want to hear.

If you put together a cabinet of different people, of people from different walks of life with different life experiences, different ways of problem solving, you're gonna get a good cross section of ideas on how to solve problems and to get those kinds of discussions that allow you to have intelligent and put together intelligent policies that will stand the test of time.

- You ran for governor twice.

You were elected and reelected.

Donald Trump has been called the undisciplined candidate.

How important is discipline in running a campaign, governor?

- You know, and discipline to the extent that, for instance, what Kamala Harris is doing now is she's going to rallies and saying the same thing and the press gets bored with that.

But that's what you have to do because by the time you are ready to just scream because you're so bored saying the same thing, the same way is when the general public is just beginning to really hear it 'cause they don't live it, it's not their life.

It's not the most important thing for them.

They have to worry about, you know, can I afford to pay the rent?

Can I get my medicines?

They have more important things, more immediate things on their minds.

And so that's what you have to do.

You have to have that discipline.

And I don't think, for instance, Trump gave a speech yesterday in Detroit to the Detroit Economic Club, and he went on for two hours.

And at the end of it, he bashed Detroit and he's sitting in Detroit.

I mean, you just wanna say a little discipline would go a long way.

- This has been a very contentious election cycle.

- [Christie] Yeah.

- In your view, have both the Democrats and the Republicans kind of lost their way for the American people in this election?

- They have to a certain extent.

The Republicans much more than the Democrats, I have to say.

I don't like to say it, but I have to say it just because the Republicans that you hear from labeled as Republicans are supporting Donald Trump and they're repeating things like Haitians are eating cats, you know, that kind of thing.

Which is mind-boggling to me that anybody could believe it.

But anyway, it's like Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that FEMA controls the weather out of Canada.

Okay, well, you know, I don't know how you reason with somebody that's willing to believe that kind of thing.

But there are a lot of people who are just on the edge.

And this has been contentious, not nearly as negative.

I mean, I hearken back to Donald Trump's inaugural address when he was being sworn in as president.

It was so bleak and so dark.

I remember thinking, I've just never heard anything like this.

And I wonder what country he lives in.

And that's the same thing he's saying.

So I believe that with Kamala Harris saying, you know, bringing that joy, that upbeat is something, that positive message is something people really want to hear.

- What's driving this contentiousness in this election cycle?

Do you think, as some have said, the root cause is that there is the rich and then those who have so much less, and that's kind of taken over in this election cycle with the candidates, the way they're talking to people, the way they're conducting their campaigns.

Is that how you see it?

What is driving this at this point?

- You know, it's hard to know.

Yes, of course that's a part of it.

But that has always been there.

the very wealthy who have everything and then those who are struggling to make it day to day.

And so that kind of dichotomy has been there and always played a part.

It's now being emphasized more.

But you know, you have to wonder on some of these proposals, are they really aimed at helping those people?

I would argue because I do believe that Kamala Harris is working that way.

That yes, hers will do better.

I don't think Trump could, I mean, having watched what he did in Atlantic City and how many small business people he put out of business 'cause he wouldn't pay his bills, I don't think he cares about them, frankly.

And as much as he says, I'm gonna be the best president for everybody, I have my doubts.

- Do you think voters will, many of them go into the polling place and not know who they're gonna vote for?

What do you think will drive them to a decision?

- I think what's gonna happen is when people get into that voting booth, they're gonna think it's four years.

What do I really want out of this country and for this country?

And what am I gonna tell my children?

And I believe at the end of the day, that if they're going in with those kinds of questions on their minds and they think about, I mean, look at these recent storms that have been clearly results of climate change because of the warmth of the ocean that's gone up so incredibly and the damage it's done to people, their loss of lives, the loss of businesses, homes, everything that they'll say, well, we should be talking about this issue.

Not saying it's a non-issue, which Donald Trump does, but taking it seriously.

They may not agree with everything that Kamala Harris has been saying, and I certainly would like to know more about how she plans to pay for some what she's talking about.

But then again, if you look at the two economic plans having been analyzed by economists, they say both would raise the deficit, but hers at about half the rate of Donald Trump's plan.

His would be twice, would raise the deficit twice as much as hers would.

Neither of them good, but that's because both parties lost their way a while ago.

Republicans used to be the party of balanced budgets.

We haven't done that in a long time.

- So Governor Whitman, as a Republican, a card carrying Republican as you call yourself these days and as a Harris supporter, what are you telling people that you go out to speak to on behalf of the Harris campaign?

You said you have an event coming up.

What are you gonna be talking about?

What are you going to be urging people to do?

- What I tell people is, look, this is not about a party.

This is about the United States of America and our form of government.

And it's not disloyal to vote for a Democrat.

And remember, you've got congressional elections in two years.

You can change things there.

You've got another presidential in four.

You can change things there if you really don't like it.

But that this is so important, this election, and I know people have heard it over and over again, and this is the most important election in your lifetime.

This time, I actually believe it because if you look back at 2020, democracy held on by a hair.

It was a few good people who stood up and said, no, I'm not gonna change the vote.

Brad Rothenberger in Georgia, people like that.

- [Kent] The secretary of State.

- Secretary of state in Georgia.

That's one of the reasons why we at Forward are focusing on those offices because even after this election, whoever wins, there are gonna be lawsuits.

And you need people as attorney general, secretary of state, in the local offices who oversee the aftermath of an election, to be people who will agree to uphold the rule of law and respect the Constitution, irrespective of who wins.

And that's why those local offices are so important and why we want to get people out to vote for them.

And then create, there's something called reverse coattails, which means that if people didn't want to vote or go into the voting booth, unsure about the presidency, and maybe thinking maybe I won't vote for it, but they go because they see someone running for mayor, running for town council, running for library commission that they like and know, and they're centrist type people, they will stay, what we've been shown, what history has shown is they stay on the ballot and they look for similar type candidates going up.

And when they get to the top, I think there's only one choice there.

- Well, Governor Whitman, thank you for your perspective.

It's important for us to hear from respected leaders like yourself to understand the different points of view.

Thank you very much.

- A pleasure, always good to be with you.

- [Narrator] Funding for "Governors' Perspectives" with Kent Manahan has been provided by Seton Hall University, Seton Hall School of Law, and by Connell Foley, LLP.

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