Transcript: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Aug. 18, 2024

The following is a transcript of an interview with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that aired on Aug. 18, 2024.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face The Nation. We go now to the Kentucky Governor, Andy Beshear, who joins us this morning from Frankfort. Good morning, Governor.

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we know that you are an advocate for Vice President Harris, and as a Democrat who runs a red state, how would you advise Democrats to stop losing support in rural areas?

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR: Well, I'd advise them to first of all focus on those things that matter most to people when they wake up in the morning. When people wake up in the morning, they're not thinking about this presidential election. They're thinking about their job and whether they make enough to support their family. They're thinking about their next doctor's appointment for themselves, their kids. They're thinking about the roads and bridges that they drive. They're thinking about the school they drop their kids off at, and they're thinking about the public safety in their community. That's why I'm so excited about the Vice President's new economic plan. I think it goes right to the heart of how you support your family with two tax credit extensions or expansions that will help the middle class. It goes to affording health care and capping overall pharmaceutical costs. The bipartisan infrastructure law further helps us on the roads and bridges we travel. So, very excited to support the Harris-Walz team. They're going to have a big victory.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, to get many of those things done, the Vice President would need a Congress to work with her. So those aren't quick fixes, necessarily, but on the Harris economic plan that you mentioned, there was also this federal ban on price gouging on food and penalties for companies that exploit crises. President Obama's top economist, Jason Furman, was critical, saying the good case scenario is price gouging is a message, not a reality, and the bad case scenario is that this is a real proposal. You'll end up with bigger shortages, less supply, ultimately risk higher prices and worse outcomes for consumers. Do you know how this would work?

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR: I do because I've been an attorney general, just like the Vice President. I pursued price gouging statutes and their violations when it comes to the price of gas in Kentucky, and we won and ultimately returned millions of dollars to our people. This isn't about trying to price fix. It's just making sure that the economy is operating the way it should, that this is really supply and demand, which we all respect. It's no different than what Teddy Roosevelt did in breaking up monopolies. It's just making sure we have the right regulations and tools in place to make sure everybody is playing the game fairly and by the rules. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: So it sounds like you're just talking about antitrust policy, but, which is something JD Vance actually supports, but Republicans, as you know, are accusing Harris of advocating for price controls, like in communist countries, where the government sets a price rather than the marketplace. You just said it's not price control. But can you explain, then, how you define what an excessive price is if you don't have a benchmark?

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR: Well, first, these are types of statutes that exist in state law. The Texas Attorney General has prosecuted price gouging violations, and I don't think anyone is going to claim that he is into price fixing, and neither is the Vice President. This has to be evidence based. Ultimately, you bring an action and you have to prove it in court, so you have to have the evidence that this is beyond supply and demand, that this is people taking advantage of us. Certainly, we've seen it after natural disasters and red states and blue states. It's just making sure that coming out of the pandemic, or in difficult times, that people aren't increasing the price of food just to make a bigger profit. All it is is making sure that capitalism stays within the guardrails. And it's not new. We've been doing this in the states for a long time.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So you also mentioned there some of the federal support for, for efforts already underway, including, by the way, electric vehicles, which I know Kentucky, you talked quite a lot about attracting some of these plants there. $11 billion invested in EV facilities. You've got at least three expected to open in 2025. What's the breakdown there of union versus non-union jobs?

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR: Well, all of the facilities are being built with union labor. Thousands upon thousands of jobs over the course of that construction, which has taken years. Now, when the Ford SK plants open, that won't be union labor because of an agreement reached between Ford and the UAW, between CEO Farley and Shawn Fain, and we respect those agreements and their negotiations. Now, what it did mean is that 10,000 plus UAW workers in Ford's two other facilities in Kentucky got better wages, better benefits, a better life for their families. So we're excited about how the union and the company were able to come together to reach an agreement that works for everybody. And that's what we want to see, right? We want to see companies continue to invest because we need them, but we want them to be good jobs that support our families. And I think that's the outcome we got here. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: We've seen this interesting phenomenon, though, where red states, often right-to-work states like Kentucky is, have benefited from these federal investments and subsidies. But we don't really hear Democrats talking about that too much. Do you think that companies are opening plants in right-to-work states like yours because the labor is simply cheaper?

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR: I have never heard a employer talk about Right to Work in Kentucky. In fact, we've opened a number of facilities that have union workers. We see more and more companies using the building trades union labor to build their facilities. In fact, union membership has gone up in Kentucky each of the last two years, and certainly, our building trades are busier than they have ever been. This may be the golden age of union labor in Kentucky, despite having those terrible statutes on the books, but my job as governor isn't to whine or complain about the statutes we have, but to go out and to build the best lives for our people, and certainly, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, the B Program, they require reasonable wages, where employers immediately turn to labor, to organized labor, because they know they're the most skilled and the very best. And I'm now seeing better interaction between companies and organized labor than I have in decades. It's really exciting.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And I know you'll be talking about labor and its role at the convention later this week. Governor, thank you very much for your time today. We'll be right back.