watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail, today at 7:30 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org, or download as a podcast on c-span now, or wherever you get podcasts. c-span. your unfiltered view of politics. >> saturday, donald trump speaks to voters at a cpan alley -- rally inewersey. oucoverage begins at 5:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, and online at c-span.org. utah governor spencer cox is the current chair of the national governors association. up next, we hear him talk about his veteran initiative, champion's ability and this is headed -- this is at an event.

>> we both have really stylish haircut. >> and we are both proud americans. >> we disagree, but we are friends, and we respect each other. >> politics is important, but it should not define us or destroy our relationships. >>'s name is spencer cox. >> and his name is spence moore. >> and we approve this message. >> please welcome to the stage, chairman of the board of trustees of the ronald reagan presidential foundation and institute, mr. fred ryan. [applause] mr. ryan: good money, everyone. welcome to the reagan institute. they are delighted today to be joined by governor cox and first lady every cox.

thank you for joining us this morning. each year the chair of the national governors association tackles an issue they care deeply about. ultimately they shape that issue into the initiative that helps them define their time as nga leader. as this year's chair governor cox took on a bold challenge. hitting americans to get along better. the governor's disagree better initiative was born from a deep concern about polarization in our country. governor cox recognized the nation needs leaders to step up and model a more positive path forward, and that governors could be the front line of this work. the nga and other organizations have convened conversations, recorded ads, written up beds, and organize debates and service of the goal of disagreeing better. we are delighted to have the governor with us here this money. please join me in welcoming the 18th governor of the state of

utah, spencer cox. [applause] welcome, governor. it is great to have you here at the institute, although this week after reading that u.s. news & world report write your state as the best day for the second year in a row, maybe we should be in utah. gov. cox: we will welcome you if you have not been there, come and join us. mr. ryan: you will take that as an invitation. here at our new center we are working to showcase innovative programs that are helping close the divide and help find common ground among americans. and of all of the things you could do as chair of the nga, you picked this issue. could you share why this was important and why disagree better has become your signature issue? gov. cox: thanks for having me here. it is a true honor and i am excited for the center on stability and democracy. i think it is timely. it is so necessary. so, as chair get to do an

initiative, and bill mcbride, the head of the nga, is here with us today him and some governors before me have had wonderful initiatives. computer science in our schools, infrastructure, just team mental health. we were looking at those types of initiatives. at the top of our list we were looking at health care reform. we looked at critical minerals and energy policy. you know, more traditional issues. dissent always been in the back of our minds. it became very clear that we cannot solve our nations problems if we hate each other. and we were seeing so much dysfunction in washington, d.c., i think that was on display yesterday, although dysfunction was replaced with a little bit of function, which was nice for a change. i want to give credit where it is due. so, we started kind of kicking this idea, could we elevate

stability, although this is different, we can touch on that in a minute, but could we elevate that issue to become an issue like guns or abortion or something else? in fact, i would put it above all of the other issues, because if we truly care about doing things and, sadly, there are elected officials who are not interested in solving problems or doing things. could we tried to do something there? i have to say, this was not just a feel-good something that we made up. we reached out to experts. researchers. we spent a lot of time with stanford's polarization and social change lab. dark mouth and others who have tried to influence the work we are doing. this is something i cared about before i was nga chair.

governor moore, i had done an ad in 2020 with my democratic opponent when i was running for governor. a friend of mine had talked to me, this is the end of september, said, i'm worried about what is happening in our country. we run on the presidential cycle, so 2020 we had had riding across the country in the wake of george floyd's murder. and then we were already hearing from, from my party, that we were undermining the legitimacy of an election that had not happened yet. so, she said, isn't there something you can do? i'm like, i don't know, what can i do? but it kept me up all weekend, so i called i opponent that next week and said, i have this crazy idea. what if we did an ad together? he was very confused. a campaign ad.

but i talked him to it. i said, i know you care about our country, and i do too. he said, i'm chris peterson and i think you vote for me. we disagree a lot of things. we both agree that we can disagree without hating each other. that we care about our country and that we will accept the results of the selection, whatever they are. that and went viral, and that was hopeful to me, that there is an exhaustive majority out there. stanford year later tested that ad as one of the interventions with people and found that it had a measurable impact in lowering the propensity toward violence, and deep polarizing. as we were kicking this idea around we thought, maybe we could convince other governor -- other governors as well. that is how disagree better was born. mr. ryan: if you look at the research data, it is disturbing to see how divided we are at

this moment as a country and how difficult it is to find common ground. from your perspective, how did we get here? what brought us to this point? gov. cox: we have thought a lot about this. we have talked to researchers about this and i have come to my own conclusions about how we got here. i like to start with the breakdown of institutions. i think that is kind of way this starts. if you go back to the 1830's and you read about alexis de tocqueville and his visit, and the thriving of institutions that are so important to our country, especially religious institutions, but so many other volunteer organizations, we didn't rely on government to do all of these things. we had a strong civil society. if we needed a new hospital reform down association -- we formed an association and build a hospital. professor robert putnam wrote a

book called "bowling alone," which i'm sure most of you remember. they be 25 years ago. it has been a long time. to me, that was kind of the first sign of trouble. that we were lonelier than ever before, the concept for those of you have not let it -- read it, was that more people were bowling in the united states and ever before, but there were fewer bowling leagues than ever before. instead of forming these leagues where you had community and thriving, people would go bold by themselves. so, this loneliness epidemic that he kind of started talking about was growing in this country. americans had fewer friends than ever before. and we are wired for connection. so, that predated social media. so, then when you layer social media on top of that, now you have fake connections, right?

not real connections. i don't have any real friends, but we need tribes, so we can all hate the same people together on facebook, so we started those tribes, and then the algorithms of social media kind of took over our lives, and cable news. and they figured out how to get us addicted to contempt, which is a real thing. tim shriver, who is here with us, and their organization, they talk often about this. but the outrage is as addicting as opioids. as gambling, as sugar. it hits the same receptors in our brain, and so now we are in our tribes, algorithms are pushing us toward this. cable news figured it out too. that we could get addicted to outrage and never have conversations with anyone different than us. all of those things lined up, and then what happens is, now

you have the perfect recipe for conflict entrepreneurs. in the media, but also in politics to step into this void. and to use fear and divisiveness to bring us together and tear us apart if that makes sense. so, bringing a tribe together, by defining the others and tearing us apart. and we end up with this kind of mourad we find ourselves in today.

been a little surprised to all of us. again, in this hyper-polarized world i thought i might get laughed out of the room when i even brought up this concept with my fellow governors. it was the exact opposite. i presented it to the republican governors. that is how they choose. the national governors association, one of the last bastions of true bipartisan work. republicans and democrats working together. we alternate chair and vice chair, democrat and republican every year. the republicans choose their chair and the democrats choose their chair, so i presented it to my republican colleagues, and was pleasantly surprised at the response, how excited they were. even some of them would say, i want to help desperately behind-the-scenes.

even better, those who are willing to help in front of the scenes. we have 20 governors who have filmed ads like the one i have done. most of them with someone from the other party. a mayor from their state, someone they respect. and so, that has been great. just the overwhelming response from the public. everywhere we go we hear, this is so refreshing. we used to do this. they are desperate for it. we talk often about the statistics and the polling that show how bad it is out there. i am optimistic with the polling that shows 70% of americans hate our politics right now. we want something different. there is an exhausted majority out there. we certainly see that. my question is, how many great organizations are involved in this work? if nothing else, i think our

greatest accomplishment will have been bringing all of those organizations together to have this conversation. they are all out there, but they have never gotten together to see how they can maximize their potential. so, if anything outlives me with this and my term is up in july, i hope we have helped empower these organizations, that they are working together to solve this problem. now, the hard part is kind of scaling this. you know, we have these ads. when people see these ads people like them. they are inspired by them. we know it has an impact. we know from stanford's work that these can help the polarized us as a nation. frank luntz also did some work around this. he did a massive pole, and then did some of his focus group work around this and found it was

overwhelmingly positive. people are dying for anything like this. and yet we just don't have the resources to -- you know, we put them on social media and hope people watch them. i would love to see these running during the nba finals, you know? it is budget and scale that is an issue. and then, just helping more people understand. the incentive structure in our country is misaligned. there is no incentive to do work like this, and so we are trying to help convince governors first, because governors actually have to do stuff. that is why we thought, they are the best group to work together. we do this bipartisan work anyway, but outside of that, to help people understand, it is not just that it is a good thing to do for our country, but it is good for politics. you can get elected or reelected doing this. there are some problems with the

way we select candidates that makes it a little more difficult to do this. the incentives are to be performative, to be outrageous. even though the vast majority of americans don't want that. there is a misalignment there. that is a piece we still need to figure out. mr. ryan: just on that point, how the political incentives, at least in congress as an example, are at odds with trying to increase civility, trying to find common ground. some of the most visible members of congress have their visibility because of the outrageous things they do and the divisive things they do. their place on social media. gov. cox: i would not mean to correct you, but i would say all of the visible. mr. ryan: how do we change the incentives? they are doing it because it works for them. maybe not for everybody, but for those who are doing it. how do we change the interests -- change the incentives? gov. cox: again, i think there

are some structural pieces that are not necessarily part of what we are doing. that there are other groups working on that are important from an electoral standpoint. but there are things we can all do. i do think we need to take a hard look at the internet and social media in general. just finished a book and had a good conversation with the author, frank mccourt. called "our greatest fight," which i recommend. he has bold ideas around restructuring the internet itself, the very fabric of the internet and how it works. to help us, so that we do not just have a very few large due outlays or monopoly-like companies controlling all of this and controlling those algorithms that i think is really critical to this conversation. but i have to say, the answer is

truly all about -- truly all of us, and at the local level deciding we are going to make this an issue. so that when you are in a town hall with the candidate and asking them what their position is on abortion or guns, that you are asking them, what are you doing to de-polarize our state or city or school board? what are you going to do to bring people together to solve problems? asking that as a question. and then our hope is, we are trying to change the permission structure to let people know that you can talk about this. the actual language -- tim, i will keep shouting you out, that is something you are working on. give people the language to do this. and then to show that the backlash is not what you think it is going to be. every one of the governors who has done an ad like this, they were pretty nervous when those were released. like, what is going to happen?

am i going to get all of this backlash? and very little. it is 10 to one, the positivity. what they hear is, this is so refreshing, thank you for doing this. that gives them permission to do it again. our hope is it will give permission to people who would see this, who would never run for office, thinking, i could do this, you know? what interests me. and we can get some different candidates, maybe, running for office again. the incentive structure now just brings out the people who thrive in that type of an environment. mr. ryan: talking about some of the challenges, at this moment, here we are, a presidential campaign that is probably going to be a pretty negative campaign. we are also looking at what is happening on college campuses. one thing several people in this room has -- have spent time on, is the looming ai disinformation coming at scale.

when we launched our program here people simultaneously said, this is the best time to launch a program like this, but it is also the worst time, because there are headwinds. are the things people could do in this period, where we are going to face these challenges? gov. cox: there are so many things they can do. i'm glad you brought that up. there is no question this is going to be just an awful six months. let's just all buckle in for that. i am an optimistic person. our nation has seen terrible things before, and we have gone through those things. i do believe the pendulum swings, and i believe brush fire starts and spreads in ways we cannot imagine. it is incumbent on every single one of us to find ways to bridge divides nb builders. architects instead of arsonists, right? so, i'm glad you brought up ai,

because it is about to get so much worse. if you think the algorithms are bad now, the power of ai to tear us apart is incredible. so, what can we do? there are things the experts tell us are important. one is to spend time face-to-face with people who are different than us. and i get criticism for disagree better. and of the criticisms i get on the right is, you just want us to go along to get along. you won't stand true to your principles. you are a rino, you just want to hang out with democrats. they are not all bad. [laughter] we were very purposeful to say, this is not just another stability initiative. this is not a kindness initiative. we need more civility and we need more kindness.

we chose the word disagree on purpose. we want people to stay true to the principles and values, to be passionate about the things you believe in. not asking you to compromise on anything, ok? that is the first part. on the left the attacks i get are, you know, generally, why would i engage with those people? those people are irrational. those people don't want me to exist. or whatever it is. i think that is -- screaming at each other is dangerous. not talking to each other at all is more dangerous. and that will never lead to a solution and make our country a better place. and, so, we have to have real conversations with people who are different than us. and what we find out when we do that -- and i can give countless examples -- is that we are not as different as we thought we were. number two is, we need to stop

defining ourselves by our political identities. when i was growing up in my congregation, in my town, i did not know who the republicans and democrats were. that was so far down the list of how we defined ourselves. that ad with governor moore is a good example of how to do this. we are dads, i am an nba fan, i am an american. republican or democrat was so far down the list. finding shared identities is really important. service is a big one. when we serve our communities and give back, the experts tell us that is a great way to depolarize. republicans and democrats working together in their communities. there is a bond that forms when we sacrifice and give back to make a place better. i think that is another really, really important one. the last one, i would say, is something that comes from john

adams. he talks about political virtues. we don't often talk about virtue these days, but he had a quote about the political virtues of patience, and moderation, and humility. without which, without those things we are all ravenous beasts of prey. he understood this natural man, the natural human instincts are divisive. but if we can practice humility, patience, and moderation then we are not ravenous beasts of prey. it seems comical to talk about humility or patience in politics. but judge learned hand, one of my favorite quotes, he was talking about the spirit of liberty. we think about the spirit of liberty we think about, i don't

know, an eagle with a machine gun, you know, a truck with an american flag. whatever. he said that the spirit of liberty is that spirit which is not too sure it is which seeks to understand -- it is right. which seeks to understand the minds of other men women. that speaks to me. this idea that i'm going to listen, and i'm going to listen to learn, not listen to debate. and then hopefully you will give me -- we tell people to ask this question. when you are in a high-conflict situation, ask, tell me more why you feel that way. that shows your interest in the other person, shows humility, a willingness to understand. he gives me an opportunity to cool down, because i like to fight first. that is always my instinct. and then it gives the other person a

sometimes i have to question multiple times but eventually you will find common ground and maybe a common solution and maybe not but that's ok but if you can attack ideas instead of people, those are little things but little things add up over time and will make us all better in whatever sphere we are in. >> i want to point out that when you walk in, the first thing you saw was a photo of ronald reagan and tip o'neill. two people who couldn't be more ideologically different. ronald reagan a conservative governor from the left and tip o'neill the democratic speaker of the left and they didn't agree very much on the issues but they did not let it get to the point where you couldn't feel they were not a good person. someone has a different view on you, people think you're a bad person they are out to destroy the country and take away everything you believe in. it took us a while to get in this process but how do we start

to break that theory because someone might have an idea you think is really bad. >> that's where getting proximate matters. brian stevenson, author of a book called just mercy that i recommend to everyone, that was his big aha moment. a black attorney in alabama representing a death row inmate. kind of talking about the racial issues that were there and some of the prison guards he had to deal with who humiliated him in terrible ways and how hard it was to get proximate to those people. those people. when he did, it changed everything. it's just harder to hate up close. that's what ronald reagan and tip o'neill did. it's one of the things i lament

most about what would happen to congress -- when i talk to members of congress that served in the 80's and 90's and into the early 2000, they would go to dinner together. they would do things together. that stopped happening. there are reasons for that. people started running elections accusing members of congress of netting -- of never being in their district and their spending too much time in washington, d.c. it was get there and get home as quickly as possible but this animosity started to grow. those relationships fell apart. ronald reagan and tip o'neill is the example i use all the time. it's the best example of how this is supposed to work. it can work but it takes time and it takes investment. it's hard. it's really hard work. it's worthwhile work. as a country, we become addicted to pleasure instead of happiness. pleasure is a false substitute for happiness.

dopamine hits our brain and we see in all kinds of forms. its addiction to social media, drugs, gambling, addiction to sugar but all of those things are supplanting or replacing true happiness. we are wired for connection. there is a difference -- a different chemical he gets release that hits those same receptors that isn't dopamine. serotonin is fulfillment, it does not lead to addiction. it leads to a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment. what we know is we get that chemical and that happiness from human connection. it's face-to-face connection, in person connection even with people different from us. we get dopamine from social media and those hits. tip o'neill and ronald reagan had it right. when ronald reagan was shot and

he was lying in the hospital, tip o'neill showed up, knelt by his bedside and held his hand and pray for him. that's america. that's who we are come a pluralistic society. our nation was founded on profound disagreement with institutions that knew we would have a whole bunch of different people, the idea that a nation founded on an idea, not on a religious or racial people come it was founded on this idea that all of us are created equal and that we are giving these god-given rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and government was designed to protect us from those things. we set up institutions and no one could get to powerful so we would have to find ways to work together. it's the only way our nation can survive is our willingness to be ronald reagan and tip o'neill. >> on this point of members of congress, they infrequently

engage with other parties but governors do engage with the other party. why is it worth it for governors and not members of congress? >> i mentioned how the incentive structures are all messed up. the incentive is different for governors than members of congress. we actually have to do stuff. [laughter] we like to say that potholes are not partisan. and one of the -- i know this will sound political and i don't mean to come is not meant that way. i believe this is more factual. one of the brilliant pieces of our country was this idea of federalism, that the states would be co-equal partners. one of the big mistakes we made as a country and i will be a little critical of the left first but trust me, i will get to the right -- it is that if we feel like something is right, the entire

country should be doing it. i think that's a huge mistake. here's the problem, that used to be a right/left argument and now my team has decided the same thing that whatever we believe is the right way to do something, we are going to get as much power as we can and force it on the rest of the country. i think our country would look very different if we allowed the laboratory of democracy to work. i've seen it with governors. we steal ideas from each other all the time. we don't care where the idea comes from. if it's a good idea, housing is a great example. we had a roundtable and housing with the governors. this was in february, the price of housing and how expensive it is now. i went back and i said if somebody just came in from another country right now and had no idea who any of us were in somebody from our country came into the room because they would have no idea we are either [laughter] they would not be able to tell

who were the republicans and who were the democrats in that room because we were trying to solve a problem. i think that's very unique and still a little bit different. franklin said that governors were the last person in the room when it comes to politics and that's mostly true. there is some governors that can claim that but mostly because as an executive, were trying to solve problems and it makes it -- i would encourage us to allow more that to happen. i think abortion is a good example. you look at what happened in europe with abortion laws, they kind of overtime found a stasis of abortions are illegal up to 12-15 weeks in that range. when we force it on the entire country, it led to so much hostility and now we've taken

that away and you see this crazy range because we never really dealt with it. it's ok that california and utah are different. that's a good thing. it really is. we will learn from each other. when things get too far out of whack in one place, their citizens will demand if someone else's more successful and 70 different categories of over a thousand data points in all 50 states and utah came out number one, people would ask what you are doing. [laughter] >> let's go to a couple of questions from the floor. we got a microphone. >> my question is to governor cox. you are the national governors association chairman and the local governors of ukraine are now copping you and your model for economic development especially the governor elected

regional council chair. he has your same role as the head of all the municipal elected officials. how are you going to do that because they want to copy your model and doing economic development and is this something zelenskyy wants to do is to take power from the federal government to the regions because the federal government doesn't do economic development but you do and you are the top state in the country so you're probably the best person to talk to. >> we've actually had conversations -- i was not on the trip but utah was the first state to take our economic team over to kyiv since the invasion. our senate president was there and met with president zelenskyy. we had those very conversations a we are very involved with what's happening in ukraine. we are deeply troubled at the

terror they continue to have and grateful that we finally got the funding to ukraine and grateful to speaker johnson for allowing that vote to go forward. i think ronald reagan would have approved and so we will continue to work with our ukrainian counterparts to help them develop that. they are trying to get that regional economic develop and moving. thank you. >> question over there? >> good morning. thank you for all the work you are doing. i'm curious what the perception has been like on college campuses. >> we tried to focus on some different areas. we focused on youth and families and we are convening in nashville in a couple of days and we will talk about that. working with ceos whose back

channels are blowing up and really struggling with conflict resolution. of course, elected officials but the fourth area was on college campuses. we've been working with different groups and some of you may be familiar with braver angels. it has an amazing campus debate model. we've taken that campus debate model to several college campuses and they participate in debates with college students which is different than the traditional debate, not just two people up on stage arguing with each other. everyone in the audience is part of the debate. everyone gets an opportunity who wants to to come up and share their views. we pick a controversial topic and then we let the students come up and argue their position. there are some ground rules. you address the chair instead of a person. you are respectful to the person.

it's really cool to see how this works. the response has been overwhelmingly positive. i mean like 100% approval rating for the people who participated unlike anything i've ever seen. what we hear is this is so refreshing, i didn't know we could do this. while i was so animated and excited, it also left deeply troubled and depressed about what's not happening on our college campuses because when i went to college, i studied political science and this is what we did. almost every class, it was deep and heated debates and energizing and then we would talk about it afterwards and go to dinner and hang out. never once thought i could not be friends with that person because we are in the other side of an issue. what we are seeing on too many college campuses is a many

college campuses, there is little viewpoint diversity. there's not much debate because of that. also when there is debate, people feel so uncomfortable or unsafe that they disengage very quickly. it's a learning skill. they don't know how to do it. the other interesting thing is there is -- has been some studies done that found that people who participated in organized debate in high school or college are much less polarized than the rest of the country. to do so, you have to understand the other side of an argument. when you understand the other side of an argument, you realize they are not just evil or stupid people. they just see the world a different way and there is a rationale behind it even if you disagree and that makes you much more tolerant of diverse

viewpoints. sadly again, not every college campus and not everywhere on college campuses but by and large, we just completely lost that. speaking of scale, i wish there was away in our group is doing this it in college campuses that are recommitting to this and i think the pendulum is swinging and i'm happy to see that toward viewpoint diversity and moving the cancel culture and allowing unpopular voices to be heard, defending the first amendment even if you hate with the person is saying. and then getting back to figuring out how to have true debate without hate. >> another question? >> thank you for being here. i appreciate all your efforts, governor cox. i work on the house select committee on the ccp and we do a lot of i work. something that i think is very important to what you said here

today is the collective action problem of the pluralist project. from my perspective on the committee, once we have the members in a room on both sides of the isle, a lot of good things can get done but as you said, it's the scale of the finances and the budget. what do you see is the most pertinent solution to that budget and scale problem from your perspective? is it realigning the incentives through the electoral process or truly getting donors in a room to back a lot of these efforts? is it more giving people the language? what is the primary way we can solve that problem? >> that's a great question and i wish i had a better answer. certainly, a couple of billionaires if there are at any in the room stepping forward and saying this is our life's work and i think we could make a difference that way. we always see politics in

culture so one of the things i've been wrestling with is how we get to culture. politicians are part of culture so certainly governors speaking about this, the science says this can make a difference. i've been trying to figure out how to get pop culture and large corporation advertising budgets involved in this. let me go back to the stanford polarization study. there were 25 interventions. they got tested. the most successful video was a heineken ad. some of you may have seen it. it went viral. basically what heineken did is they would put two people in a room and they had to build a bar , it was like an ikea furniture project. there would be two strangers to build his bar together and the

executives would say you did it, congratulations and now you get a choice, you can have a beer together, a heineken or you can leave the room but before you choose that, we will show you a video. they interviewed all these people before hand. they talked to them about their political views and there were people, extremists on both sides. one example was a person who is actually transgender and another person who hated everything related to transgender's. they put them in a room together and they build his bar together and they say you have to watch this verse. there is this really awkward awful moment when they realize they just spent an hour doing this project with someone they hated. they didn't know they hated them until just after this. then they said you get to choose. this moment when they choose to stay.

if you have a soul or a heart, it would make you cry. it's really powerful and i encourage you to watch it. i think heineken sold a lot of beer. [laughter] >> they made people feel something. i would love and we've made this pitch, i would love corporate america to say -- corporate america wants to stay away from politics. michael german says bump republicans buy shoes as well but turn that around, this is not getting involved in politics, it's about bringing americans together and helping them feel something. i had this great idea for an ad where two vehicles pull up in front of two houses, they are moving in. you got a big truck rolling down the road, you got an electric vehicle pulling up on the others. you got a bumper sticker that matches, two families get out with their kids and they kind of

eyeball each other and walk into their new house. one puts up amag flag in one puts up a pride flag and the kidsa and replaced both legs with an american flag and then you see the dads walkout and they eat mcdonald's together in the backyard. [laughter] >> it's something that gets us into the culture to give us permission again to talk about this. we've been talking to the wisest talent agency in the world to get several -- celebrity to come to our meetings to have these conversations. i think there is something about giving people permission again. when they see these videos, they say thank you. this is what i want. i didn't know how to articulate it but this is what i wanted. don't think we can leave it up to the politicians to fix. i don't. i think it's up to the rest of us. >> we are just about out of time

but i utah has been picked number one is two years in a row so could you tell us if they disagree better in utah? >> utah is very unique and lots of ways. the researchers will tell you this as well. while we have an amazing economy and we've been by most metrics the best economy in the nation over the past 10 years, top three in any ranking, we are proud of that but there is something different and something unique that scholars have literally come biweekly and we get calls from harvard and yale and other places all over the country coming to figure out was different about utah. we are trending the way of the rest of the country but we are farther behind. what they tell me is there is a couple of things. we lead the nations service every year we lead the nation in

charitable giving every year. those institutions again, alexis de tocqueville, when he was here talked about the importance of those volunteer institutions. we have more of those in utah. i cannot talk about utah without talking about the religious fees obviously but the oldest church is only about half of the population now. we have other amazing religious leaders in the state and religion plays a very prominent role. being an institution where people find connection with people who are different than them so back to bowling alone. every week, when something goes wrong, you have another group, neighbors and fellow congregants and others. we still have very robust institutions outside of that with volunteer organizations that do this type of work. i believe that makes you

different. one of the -- two of the rankings are most proud about is we lead the nation in social capital. i think that's a result of some of this social capital and upward mobility. if you are born in poverty in utah, you're less likely to stay in poverty than any other state in the nation. the american dream still is alive and well. the last piece emily proud of is that we lead the nation in non-zero-sum thinking. this kind of scarcity mentality that if you win that i lose, if i win then you lose, it's doggy dog and it's us against the world, that's very dangerous. the abundance mentality that if you win it's good for all of us, that still happens in utah. something that i think matters and because of that, it calls us

the happiest state of the nation. happiness versus pleasure. that happiness comes because of those connections. government is not good. it wasn't designed to fill that gap. government cannot connect is really aurburn's together. it can provide a safety net but we need strong civic institutions. we are seeing more people leave our churches in utah just like everywhere else. it's a fastest growing faith in america are thenones and that worries me because not because i think everyone has to be religious but when you leave those institutions, what are you replacing them with? we don't have a good answer for that. we are not replacing them with bowling leagues i can tell you that. we are replacing them with facebook hate or whatever i

think the experts will tell you that's why utah is doing better but i'm deeply worried about it and i think about it often because it's not in our dna. there's nothing that says we can keep that we have to be intentional about it and speak about it and build our own communities. i believe wherever you are, that's the answer. we need to stop telling kids to go out and change the world. it's making them anxious and they will not do it and it's just not good for them or for us. what we need to tell kids to do is to change their neighborhood. to invest and go volunteer to get to know your neighbors and help them out, to go to the local food bank or whatever. that's how we fix all of this. it really is in our local families khmer neighborhoods in our congregations. >> governor, thank you for your great leadership in this area

and thank you for joining us today. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] >> today,he affordable housing conference of montgomery county, maryland hold his 33rd annual housing summit. u.s. representative jamie raskin and glenn ey are expected to join acting usg secrery adrian thomas and discussing issues impacting the development of affordable housing. watch live at 1:10 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now our free mobile video app or online at c-span.org.

>> c-span has been delivering unfiltered congressional coverage for 45 years. here is a highlight from a key moment. >> something else i saw firsthand wasn't a surprise to me but it was an outpouring of love from you, my colleagues. both republican and democrat. right after the shooting, we were practicing on the republican side and the democrats are practicing as well. my colleague and friend and sometimes archrival in baseball from back home in orleans and unfortunate to starve of the game too many times they figured out which hospital i was sent to and got there probably the first person thereon seen in his baseball uniform to check on me. so many others of you, both republican and democrat reached out in ways i cannot express the gratitude and how much it means to me, jennifer and our whole family. it really does show the warm

side of congress that very few people get to see. >> c-span, powered by cable. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government, funded by these television companies and more, including midco. ♪ >> no one can do it like we do. ♪ >> midco supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. ♪ >> saturday, former president donald trump spes voters at a campaign rally in wiwo, new jersey. our live coverage starts at 5 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now and online at c-span.org.

>> american history tv saturdays on c-span2, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. at 2 p.m. eastern, lauren thompson reads her book friendly enemies and talks about white those are against it and union and confederate soldiers often fraternize. at 3 p.m. eastern, remembering the korean war, first the late ralph puckett junior, a korean war veteran lay in honor at the u.s. capitol in washington, d.c. then a symposium on the korean war from texas christian university in fort worth. and at 7 p.m. eastern, the american history tv series congress investigates looks at historic congressional investigation that led to changes in policy and law. this week, the 1987 hearings on the iran-contra affair,

examining the clandestine operation and selling missiles to iran in exchange for the release of hostages in lebanon with proceeds going to contra rebels in nicaragua. exploring the american story. watch american history tv saturdays on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> we will take you live now to the house of representatives. the chamber's gaveling and for what we believe will be a brief session. no votes or plan. you are watching c-span.