- [Announcer] Funding for Governors' Perspectives with Kent Manahan has been provided by NJM Insurance Group, serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years, Seton Hall University, Seton Hall School of Law, and by Connell Foley LLP.

[upbeat music] - [Roosevelt] I prefer to work with moderate, with rational, conservatives, provided only that they do in good faith strive forward toward the light.

But when they halt and turn their backs to the light, sit with the scorners on the seats of reaction, then I must part company with them.

- Theodore Roosevelt spoke those words in 1912 in a campaign speech, trying to win the Republican nomination for president.

Now, in our current political environment, cooperation and compromise aren't even on the agenda in the nation's capital.

With Democrats in control of both the executive and legislative branches, and Donald Trump continuing to have a strong influence on the Republican Party, the partisan divide just keeps growing, and so does the speculation about the state of and the future of the Republican Party, the party Teddy Roosevelt grew up in.

The Grand Old Party goes back some 167 years, emerging to combat the expansion of slavery.

Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president, winning the 1860 election.

In all, there have been 19 Republican presidents, the most of any political party.

The 21st century National Republican Party is described as American conservatism supporting lower taxes, free market capitalism, deregulation, gun rights, and a strong national defense.

The party came into its own in New Jersey during the Civil War, and from 1894 to 1973, Republicans controlled both houses of the state legislature for all but 12 of those years.

In the last nearly 50 years, there have been five Democratic governors.

So far only one, Brendan Byrne, was reelected.

Governor Murphy is running for a second term this November.

The three Republican governors who've served during those years have all been reelected, and with us now, two of those Republican governors.

So good to have you with us, Governor Kean and Governor Whitman.

We always look forward to your perspective, and today we're gonna discuss what's at stake for the future of the Republican Party.

Given your experience, and the fact that both of your families have a long history in the Republican Party, both nationally and here in New Jersey, but Governor Whitman, to begin, you've been very public about voting for the Democrat in the last two presidential elections, and you've been out there speaking out against the party.

So, what has to change, in your opinion, for the GOP to become an effective, strong party into the future?

- Well I think it needs to get back to its roots, the Republican Party that it used to be, that stood on principle, not around the character of one person or the personal beliefs of one person.

We used to have stand for the rule of law, we used to uphold the Constitution, understand we needed to keep spending within limits so that we could keep taxes low, have I engaged national policy and international policy security at home, and that was it, not have all these litmus tests for everything and now it's gotten to the point where, it has gotten, the litmus tests are getting so extreme that it's dangerous for the country.

I believe our country functions best with two major parties, a center-left and a center-right, and Republicans have moved way off that center.

Democrats are starting to go that way, don't get me wrong.

I mean, they've got to be careful too, but I believe it's a danger to the country to have one party so far into the extreme.

- Governor Kean, are there issues, are there concerns that you have about what's going on currently in the Republican Party?

- Yeah, concerns about the party and concerns about the country.

Governor Whitman is absolutely right.

We've worked enormously well with two bodies, center-left, center-right.

Country's done very well with that over the years and made progress.

Now, we could be reaching one of those turning points, perhaps that we haven't had since prior to the Civil War, when things are changing fairly radically, when there's a whole group who doesn't want to play by the traditional rules, and I don't know what's gonna happen, I don't know what's gonna happen, but I do know that if we can bring it back toward the center, in both parties, I think it'd be better for the country.

- Well you're involved currently, Governor Whitman, with some 150 or so other National Republicans around the country who are, as you describe it, I believe, trying to bring about change, major change in the party or perhaps, if that doesn't work, form an alternative Republican Party.

How is that effort going?

Tell us about it.

- Well, it's called A Call for American Renewal and we've put out a set of principles that again are very much like what I described to you earlier on, and we are all Republicans.

We want to bring the Republican Party back to the party that it used to be, to stand on those principles, and we're asking anybody who agrees with them to join us.

We're having a town hall, virtual town hall, later on this month.

What we're gonna do is be supporting candidates that will speak up against the big lie which is so undermining our democracy.

I mean that's what scares me with these, with the extremes that we've gotten to, the fact that we are having the fourth recount of an election in Maricopa County, Arizona by a group called CyberNinjas, whose head is a, someone who believes in the big lie that Trump lost the election.

These things are undermining the public's confidence in our electoral system and that is really dangerous.

Every time you have another one of these laws being discussed at a legislature, they're trying in Pennsylvania, they're trying in Wisconsin to do the same thing, every time you do that and pass laws like Texas to limit people's access, legitimate voters' access to the polls to exercise their franchise, that's just very dangerous for our democracy.

- Is this an effort, you think, Governor Kean, that can take off in the Republican Party, what Governor Whitman is involved in?

- Well historically, yes.

Movements to reform parties have had some effect in the past, movements to do third parties have not, and that's generally been a failure throughout American history, but I think the idea of preserving the two-party system, the idea of going back to some of the things, I mean we've, look, in this state in this country now, we used to, Republicans used to object terribly if we spent millions of dollars.

Now he's talking about trillions of dollars and Republicans don't seem to care anymore and Democrats do, and that's a debt to our children.

[chuckles] We used to, Republicans used to be for our children and grandchildren and saying we're not gonna encumber them with that kind of a legacy.

Now, you know, that position that the Republican Party stood for for a long, long time seems to be gone.

- So what are those core principles that I think you're speaking of that the Republican Party has always stood for and should stand for, you're saying?

- Well don't spend money you don't have, for one, which is [chuckles] a core belief, or should have been a core belief.

We've generally been internationalist in our beliefs in as far as foreign policy goes.

We believe very, very strongly in the rule of law and defended it when we had to.

We've been, my party has been an environmental party.

We were the ones who started the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, that's all Republican.

Teddy Roosevelt almost invented the conservation movement.

He was one of my favorite presidents.

So there were a number of core beliefs in the Republican Party that I believe in, kind of things that made me a Republican.

My first vote was for Dwight Eisenhower and he stood for the kind of Republican that I still am.

- So the political pundits today are talking about a civil war inside the Republican Party.

Is that a fair way to refer to it, in your opinion?

- I wouldn't call it a civil war.

It's a pretty profound disagreement, but not a civil war.

That's a little bit too extreme for me.

- What happens when there's a split?

- Well I think the party becomes irrelevant.

You know, depending on the split, they may win, I am fully prepared that they might take back the House in this next cycle in 2022 or, you know, and that they, because that's what normally happens in a year after the presidential year when Congress is up, but it's not a lasting formula, particularly when you're reading people out as well.

I mean, one of the other things that the party that Governor Kean and I have been part of was a party that embraced people.

It's like New Jersey, New Jersey is, I always called it many faces, one family.

It's that history of immigrants and immigration has made us great.

We now have, as Republicans, started this mindset of if you don't look exactly like me, I don't want you, I don't want you anywhere around.

I mean, you can say, in a way, it's a good thing because we're finally discussing race more openly than we ever have before, but it really is sad to see people being attacked and this discrimination that's taking place and a lot of these laws that are being passed, unfortunately, almost all of them by Republican legislatures, there is some movement on the Democrat side.

This way, again, they're not pure, but to try to make it harder for people to vote is really pretty clearly aimed at communities of color.

- While you're speaking of that, do you think that Donald Trump can successfully lead the party into the 2022 elections next year?

- Well, Donald Trump is a unique figure in American history.

We have never, in my opinion or study, ever seen a figure as polarizing, as charismatic, with so many followers who seem to follow him either up a hill or over a cliff, whatever it happens to be, and regardless of anything else.

That's unique in American history.

The closest I can come to is maybe Huey Long.

If he hadn't been assassinated, he could have challenged Franklin Roosevelt, it could have been a similar challenge but there's nothing, so, what we're talking about and how we go from here on depends in a lot on one man.

I mean how, what he does from here on in, if he continues to try to lead the party, if he continues to endorse candidates only who, with his views and his way of looking at the world, but if he goes away, either voluntarily or any other way, things could change very rapidly 'cause he's, this is one man who seems to have put together a movement that no other man in the history of the country has ever done, and it's remarkable.

Nobody else in my lifetime has ever been able to call together 20,000 people who'll come and listen to him.

That's, Franklin Roosevelt couldn't do that, Eisenhower couldn't do that, Kennedy couldn't do that.

He could do it.

- So does the party need more moderate people like you two former governors?

Is that, and can the party attract those people?

- Well that's what we're trying to do with A Call for American Renewal, and I believe it can because if you look at registration numbers, it's the independents that are growing.

Democrats are next and Republicans are way behind, so while Donald Trump has this extremely passionate base, that base is shrinking.

It's not as many as it used to be, and he's not quite as relevant, but Governor Kean is absolutely right.

I mean, he has controlled the conversation, he's controlled the actions in a way I haven't seen anyone do it, well, since some dictators in other countries that we don't want to go, we don't want to mention, but it's true, I mean, that's the kind of thing.

He's appealed to a group, and to people who have felt disenfranchised, who are worried that they're losing their place in society because our country is gonna be a majority people of color in not too long into the future, and people are, some people are scared of that, and don't forget, there was a long period of time there has been, and there still is, where people worked two jobs to stay in the same place and they were feeling frustrated.

When they were told those are the people that are taking your jobs away, they leapt on that because it's easy and it's easy to believe, and it's easy to then say, and I'm the person that's gonna do something about it, even though he didn't, they still believe it, they like the rhetoric, and it's been, it's really affected our nation.

I mean, we've had, you were talking about a split within the Republican Party.

We've had it before.

1964 convention with Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller.

I mean that was a convention.

[chuckles] I'll never forget it when Rockefeller spoke.

- You were there.

- Oh yeah, I was a page.

- And you were there.

- I was there, yeah.

- Not supporting Barry Goldwater.

- No, no, I wasn't.

- No.

- Bill Scranton, the former governor of Pennsylvania?

- I was supporting Bill Scranton and we were anxious to-- - So what was that like for you?

- It was, up to that point, it was probably the most fiery convention.

I mean people were demonstrating, people kid, people were yelling at each other, people were booing Nelson Rockefeller when he spoke.

It was actually, the worst thing that ever happened when I was there was, it was a, we had Pennsylvania was one of our top state's candidate for governor, so we were demonstrating, going around the convention hall, and somebody took out a lighter.

- It must've caused quite a stir.

- Well, it didn't cause much of a stir as it should have.

I mean, it was something that we recognized when it's happening as we saw it happen, and something was reported afterward in the press, but the convention, I don't think people knew what was happening in the Florida convention.

- No, I don't think they did.

- It was wild, it was in the middle of a demonstration.

- Our delegates, I'll never forget it, 'cause I was what, 13 or something at the time watching this, one of our delegates stand on his chair and spit when Nelson Rockefeller was trying to speak, and Rockefeller was great.

You know, where he just stood there and said, "They've given me five minutes and I'm gonna take it, "so you just keep on demonstrating as long as you want to "but I'm gonna speak for five minutes," and he just waited them out.

- So this was your introduction to the Republican Party, how things work, and your life ever after as Republicans, I take it.

Governor Kean, let me turn the conversation to the insurrection at the Capitol, January 6th.

Do you see the need for a 9/11 style commission to investigate what happened and why to be answered to the American people?

You, of course, led the 9/11 Commission as the chair after the World Trade Center attacks.

- Well, I believe in that, but also just to continue our previous conversation, somehow, we've got to be able to talk to people who feel disenfranchised, for people feel the country has let them down, for people who feel that their children are not gonna have the same future and chance they had, and therefore are deeply discouraged in the American dream and in the country itself.

I've never seen as many people out there who really are that discouraged right now about the country, and therefore looking for radical means, they hate particularly elites, they hate the people who are running the country, and who it is I think at the moment 'cause they feel left out and so far we have, and a bunch of those people went down to the Capitol.

And instead of simply demonstrating in support of the president, decided they were gonna actually try to prevent the certification of the new president based on the vote, and that has never happened in history before.

The last time the Capitol was attacked was by the British in 1814, so, we're used to thinking of what we call banana republics, those kind of things, attacks in their capitol, so this is enormously serious.

We don't still know quite why it happened, how many people were involved, and why the defenses of the Capitol were particularly down at that moment.

A lot of questions we don't know about, and this is so serious, I think, for the democracy, have your capitol attacked.

We gotta find out the answer to those questions.

We gotta find out, one, because we as a people deserve to know.

Secondly, because we wanna make sure it never, ever happens again, and thirdly, 'cause it's an insult to our democracy and we want to find out how and why it happened.

- So why won't Republicans in Washington support this?

- Because I think they're afraid that with that kind of a commission that honestly looks at how this came together, because there were people there who were just demonstrating because they were frustrated and they believed the big lie, they believed that Donald Trump was a legitimate president, but there were also the Proud Boys and several of those other groups who now we know clearly were planning ahead of time for this.

They had come with this precise desire to overturn the election.

They were gonna stop that count of the electoral ballots.

We need to know about that, and I think Republicans are afraid that it's gonna point to Donald Trump.

I don't think Kevin McCarthy wants to have to testify under oath as to what that conversation was, and yet you've got another Congresswoman who is willing to step up and tell them exactly what she heard Kevin McCarthy say at that point and what he turned to her and said the president said to him.

They don't want that 'cause it's not gonna look good, and unfortunately, they're putting their own political careers ahead of what the country needs, and that's what we've seen, I believe, far too often, where politics is Trump policy, but in this case, it's something that we should know because we've gotta make sure it doesn't happen again, and these people are not going away.

You may be able to make some of those who are feeling disenfranchised and left behind feel better.

We may be able to reach them, but those who want to see destruction, who want to see an overturn, who feel they need to exercise their rights to own all their weapons and things, they're not going away, and they could do this again.

- Bringing the discussion of Republicans and the party to New Jersey, Governor Kean, what advice would you give Jack Ciattarelli, the nominee for the Republican Party to run against the incumbent governor?

What advice would you give him, given that Democrats far outnumber Republicans in this state, but there are some 2 1/2 million or so independent voters?

- In states like New Jersey, I don't know why they say this, but they won't vote for national office, congress and senators, but they'll vote for governors.

So the fact that Maryland is a much more Democratic state than New Jersey, Republican governor, Massachusets, more Democratics, Republican governor.

So, and Jack Ciattarelli is less far behind than I was when I was nominated.

[chuckles] So it's very, very possible, very, very possible, and what he's got to do is exactly what he's doing now.

You gotta introduce himself to the state, tell the people what he stands for, point out that he's a New Jerseyan through and through, which he is, that he cares very much about the state, that he's looking through not only us but our children and our grandchildren, he wants to make the state a great place to be and a great place to live, and he's got the kind of gumption and energy and effort and beliefs that can do it.

I mean that's what he's got to do and I think he's capable of doing it.

- It takes money and it takes a campaign and it takes issues.

Governor Whitman, are there some issues that you would point to that Jack Ciattarelli can be out there on successfully to run against Governor Murphy?

- I think Jack's already on them.

He's talked about them, he's talked about the response to COVID, and what it's done to small business, and the need for reinvigorating our economy, and the fact that he thinks that this, that believes this governor has not stepped up to do that.

There were a lot of, I mean, Governor Murphy has gotten a lot of credit for his initial response to COVID, and I think he did a pretty good job, but there are certainly holes in that and the way he went about it.

People can argue and pull apart how long we should have kept the state shut down.

There, all these other issues, though, that people have forgotten about because COVID has so dominated, that's starting, we're starting to open up now.

COVID will not be what Governor Murphy can run on exclusively.

He is going to have to speak up to his other issues, to the other things that are challenging this state, our overall infrastructure, about which really nothing's been done that I can see in the last few years.

All those kinds of things are going to be where Jack needs to focus.

As Governor Kean said, he needs to show that he knows New Jersey, and he is a New Jerseyan and that's what he cares about.

Those are the issues of importance in this race, and people do vote for governor because they know the enormous power the governor of New Jersey has to make a real difference, and I believe that he has a fighting chance.

It's gonna be an uphill battle and he knows that, but as Governor Kean said, he has the energy.

He's young, a lot younger than us.

- [chuckles] That's right.

- Well, let me ask you about your thoughts for the future.

If you could wave a magic wand and say what could happen for the Republican Party to bring back the party that both of you have spoken about in this interview, what would you wish for the party?

What action should be taken to bring that along?

- Leadership, good men and women to take a stand and go forward in the principles of the Republican Party, people in the states where the Republican Party has always had its strength, good people to run for governors, and then from that base, you can start to do the national stuff, but I think you started out, our party's always been strong in the states and at our best, and a lot of our best leaders have always come out of the states, and that's where I think I'd do the rebuilding because we gotta, you know, we gotta not only save the party, we gotta, this is important for the country.

The idea of two strong parties is vital, and if we lose that, if we get sucked into the situation we got into before the Civil War, we're gonna have, we're gonna have a very troubled country, and we don't want to see that for our children or our grandchildren.

- What advice would you give young people who are interested in politics, in running for office perhaps, or just being involved in the party?

How do you attract those people today given the current circumstances surrounding the Republican Party, but how, what advice do you have for those young people to get involved?

- Well, to do just that, to get involved, but I'm excited because the young people with whom I've had the opportunity to interact with various things they're doing are really enthusiastic about issues such as climate change and tackling them about those big issues.

They know it's their future they're talking about and they want to be involved, they're getting involved.

Many of the major companies when I was on the boards of some of the publicly traded companies were finding that one of the first questions they were asked by new employees or potential employees, what are you doing for the environment?

What's your environmental footprint?

What are you doing for water conservation?

And in order to get the quality of employee they wanted, they had to have good answers to that.

So I am encouraged by it, but what I tell the young people when I talk to them, and I'm sure Governor Kean does the same thing, is get involved.

Find the, I particularly say, you know, find the issues about what you care the most and find out where the decisions are being made on those issues, and then go there, whether it's the town council or the county board of freeholders, I guess we call them commissioners now, we've changed the name, or they were commissioners, or the state level, get involved.

You can be heard and you can really make a difference.

It doesn't matter your age, you can make the difference.

- When you say you can make the difference, can the party make the difference on these big issues like climate change, like immigration, like social justice?

Does the party have what it takes right now, Governor Kean?

- It has some of what it takes right now, and we've got a good environmental caucus in the House, I know in the Senate, and so, yes, but you know, there was a book I read once, that terrible book about politics.

I wouldn't advise anybody read except the first paragraph.

[chuckles] The first paragraph said if you want to get into politics, wait until your party loses an election, then volunteer the next day at the headquarters, help sweep up.

This is a good time for that in the Republican Party.

[chuckles] It's not a bad time to get involved.

There's more space, frankly, in the Republican Party I think right now than there is in the Democratic Party for young people.

They can make a difference, they can make change, not always gonna be easy, but nothing good is easy.

[chuckles] - And onto new horizons, that's what you're saying.

- Onto new horizons, you know.

Get the best of whatever Trump's done, and he's done some things that I support, and then put everything together, and you have a party for the future.

- Well, governors, this has been a very interesting conversation.

You've certainly given us a lot to think about about where the Republican Party has come from, where it is, and where it has to go.

Thank you so much for your perspective and your time, Governor Kean and Governor Whitman.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- [Announcer] Funding for Governors' Perspectives with Kent Manahan has been provided by NJM Insurance Group, serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years, Seton Hall University, Seton Hall School of Law, and by Connell Foley LLP.

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