This is a rush transcript from "Life, Liberty & Levin," September 30, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MARK LEVIN, HOST: Hello, America. I am Mark Levin. This is "Life, Liberty & Levin." We have a great guest, Governor Matt Bevin from Kentucky. How are you sir?
GOV. MATT BEVIN, R-KY.: It's a pleasure to be with you. I'm doing well, thank you.
LEVIN: Thank you. You know, you are uniquely qualified to talk about this upcoming election given your background. And I want to talk very briefly about your background and then we'll jump right in. First off, the first office you've ever held is governor of Kentucky.
BEVIN: That's correct.
LEVIN: The first office the President has ever held is President of the United States.
BEVIN: He aimed a little higher and I'm glad he did..
LEVIN: Aimed a little higher, but I want to get into this with you in just moment. You were elected the 62nd governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 2015. There haven't been many Republican governors of Kentucky, have there in modern times?
BEVIN: No, I may be like the fourth or so in the last hundred years. We don't do this very often, that's true.
LEVIN: No, you grew up with family, lived in an old farmhouse in dirt poor, based on what I read.
BEVIN: We were financially humble. That is certainly below the poverty level.
LEVIN: You grew up on a farm, you raised crops and livestock and you had parents who instilled in you -- family and faith. You attended Washington and Lee University in Virginia later on an ROTC scholarship. Upon graduation, active duty in the United States Army as an officer. You left the service having achieved the rank of Captain.
And you founded several companies in Kentucky. You invested in a number of others in the Commonwealth as well as in other states and I want to talk about this election. I think it's very, very important and I want to circle back to your own experience in how you became governor.
It wasn't so simple, it's not a straight line in a tough state. They keep talking about this blue wave and some of the early indications are there is going to be or maybe some kind of blue wave. You are a man of government, you're a man of history, you're a man of politics. What do you see happening here?
BEVIN: I am a student of history. I've always pride - I grew up in a home with no television so we did read a lot and I've always been intellectually curious about a variety of things. And I tend to look at statistics and they seem to stick in my head and I do know this, that in modern times, they've only been twice when there was not a midterm shift in power.
And so, it is the norm. It would be unusual if the Democrats did not take control of the House. In fact, the average has been 31 seats in each of the midterm elections that have changed parties. The Republicans have a 24-seat lead, I believe, which would imply that they would be seven seats down.
Statistically, historically it's a given that they will lose the House. But there have been two times when that did not happen. I truly do believe this will be the third time. We are in - the paradigm has shifted a bit. We are in a different time and people - for all of the narrative that we get in what passes for mainstream media and I say that not pejoratively, but just that's what they would call themselves, traditional media, would have us believe that A, this person who is now the President, Donald Trump, is not even really the President, shouldn't have been, had no chance, does not deserve to be there is one step away from being impeached.
All of the things - this narrative that they would have us believe is not really connected to what the American people believe or he wouldn't have gotten 307 electoral votes. The whole point being that I think there is an appetite for what he's been doing that is not evident based on polling or what people are saying or what yard signs or bumper stickers are out there just as it is not evident in 2060. I think this will be the third time.
Will the Republicans lose seats? Yes they will. It will be shocking if they did not. In fact, they will lose seats. Will they lose 31? I don't believe so. Will they lose even 25? I don't believe so. We will see.
I mean, the voters will decide. Every district is different. But the level of resentment that is held by a handful is not widespread among the people and I truly believe that people are grateful for the President, his willingness to shake things up, his willingness to deliver on promises that he made. He is doing - and people may or may not like the methodology, but you can't argue with the results. He is somebody who is executing like very few people that have preceded him in terms of what he ran on and that's a refreshing change of pace for Americans.
LEVIN: These news reports talk about how the Democrat base is all fired up and how the Republican base is relatively passive. I'm starting to see a change in this that there is potential backlash that the media are really so one-sided, so over-the-top that the Democrats whether it's hearings or whatever is taking place, the attacks on Ted Cruz and other conservatives and Republicans who serve in the administration at restaurants and so forth, you really think there's this relatively silent majority, so-called, that's out there that is going to show up in the midterm election?
BEVIN: There is no way I would be the governor. There is no way that President Trump would be the President if that majority did not exist. It wouldn't be possible because I didn't have the support of the party or of the powers that be or of any particular political establishment nor did he.
In fact, I was at a more microcosmic level in Kentucky, a shock to the system in ways that unnerved people because who was I? I was somebody who didn't - I hadn't kissed the right rings or backsides or waited in line or whatever the case might be and he's done the same thing. But America is hungry for this. Americans are not the fools that the media and so many in the political ranks would have us believe that we are.
And that is the greatness of America. Is that people are, at the end of the day, not easily fooled. And I truly believe that there is a hunger for a continuation of the path we are on which is America standing firmly for life and liberty and the things that this show is here to discuss. These are the foundational tenets upon which this nation was built. It's refreshing when we actually have a leader in Washington who believes this to his core.
LEVIN: You mentioned the House of Representatives. How about the United States Senate? When you look at the map, the United States Senate, the Republicans should be winning a whole bunch of seats, sure. The Republicans in the Senate and the House, they haven't delivered on a lot of their promises. The President has.
Spending is up, the debt is way up, but they've done good things. I mean with judges and so forth, but not an additional penny for the law that the President is trying very, very aggressively to get taken care of. How do you see the Senate in this election?
BEVIN: I truly - I would be shocked if they did not pick up one or two seats. I mean, you are correct in a different environment, with a different sense of motivation and a different sense of urgency perhaps, but the reasons for why we're not getting those things, you could lay directional blame in any number of directions. We might pick up five, six or seven.
Truthfully, with far more potential pickups than we have seats to defend as Republicans. I say this as a Republican. But I think we could pick up one or two pretty easily. I would be shocked if we didn't come out with 53 or 54 seats in the Senate. I really would.
LEVIN: So what you're saying is on election night, on that first Tuesday night in November, we are going to be watching television or listening to the radio and the same people who were shocked at Donald Trump's victory are going to be shocked at what happens in the midterm election.
BEVIN: I believe so. Because what happens is that it becomes this false narrative that for whatever reason has been predetermined in the minds of some and they try to will it into fruition by talking about it nonstop as if it's a foregone conclusion. Trying and it's interesting because within the insulated world in which people have these conversation, it all sounds good and nobody disagrees because they all want the same false narrative to come true, but out there in the heartland in places like Kentucky, people aren't reading "The Washington Post." They are not reading "The New York Times." They don't give a rip about what some prognosticator in Washington DC thinks about the political landscape. They don't.
What they care about are the same things that they have always cared about. They care about the security of their families, the physical security and the financial security. They care about their wallet. They care about whether the money that they earn is able to be kept as much as possible by themselves and to the extent that it's not what the government does with it is actually useful and productive. These are simple things. We are simple people. We're not easily fooled as Americans. We are not idiots, but at the same time, we also want simple things in our lives. We want families to live in freedom and we want as little government in our lives as possible.
I wear this button right here. It's a little pair of scissors cutting through red tape. It's an indication people on my team wear this. I pledged when I was elected I am going to cut 30% of all regulation in our state over three years and we are well on our way to doing it. And people who say, "Hey, this is somehow going to compromise our safety, our security, our environment and what have you," Nonsense.
Still 100,000-some rules telling us what we can or cannot do. Americans are fed up with this. Nobody wants a dirty environment or dirty air or unsafe streets or whatever the case might be, but they are increasingly less convinced that more government rules are the answer to give them liberty that innately they were created to crave and that we've been blessed in this nation like no people that have ever lived on this earth to have such an abundance that we can afford to take it for granted.
It's my biggest fear. I was asked recently what the biggest threat to America was and I think it's our apathy. It is the fact you're so blessed that we can afford to not care. Think about that. We have it so good that we can afford to not care and we're convinced that our quality of life is not likely to change much. That's the beginning of the end.
Every culture and civilization since the dawn of man has crumbled from within. Exterior wars - wars move nation's capitals. They move borders, but wars do not destroy cultures. Wars do not destroy civilizations. Those are destroyed from within due to complacency and due to apathy.
LEVIN: Beyond the presidency, beyond this election, do you think were beginning to crumble from within?
BEVIN: There s no doubt. I wrote a letter back some years ago to someone in the faith-based community and it was entitled "Where are the Daniels?" This was before I had ever thrown my hat into the political arena. This was somebody as an observer, as a father, as a veteran, as a husband, as a taxpaying employer of other people, somebody who was like so many of your viewers that are just out there living my life. I looked around at the landscape and I said "What are we doing?' We've become numb. We have come - and again, it's not to pick on - I'm a big believer in term limits. I just am. Always have been. Nothing good comes from complacency in any one place whether it's a business, whether it's in government, whether it's in a church, pick the category, if people become too accustomed to any one thing for too long, it usually doesn't result in a better environment.
And so to that end, I looked around and I said ,"America is getting soft. The underbelly is getting soft." And did worry about this. I wrote this letter, I said, "Where are the Daniels? Where the people from among us, normal people, that are willing to rise up and give some modern day equivalent of defiance to the king and say, this is not acceptable. This is not who we are. These are not the values that we hold."
And so this has been something of concern to me for some time. I will say this, you often hear people in politics talk about how we are at some kind of a crossroads. I would beg to differ only in this respect.
I think in recent years, and we saw it in 2016 and we are still there, it's more of a fork in the road. Crossroads implies a lot of options. A fork in the road, you go in one way or the other. And America is still, but has very much in recent years been at this fork in the road. And we were going to dog-like hard to the left in a way that may or may not have not ever been possible to return from or go to the right.
LEVIN: When we come back home and ask you, what should all of these Republicans be running on? You are a conservative, you ran as a conservative. You fought through the primary system. You were elected governor of Kentucky. I think your advice during these times would be particularly useful.
Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget, almost every weeknight you can join us over at the crtv.com, crtv.com and watch my show which is Levin TV. Just go to crtv.com/mark, crtv.com/mark or give us a call at 844-LEVIN-TV, 844- LEVIN-TV. We would love to have you over there and are growing conservative community. We'll be right back.
LEVIN: Governor Matt Bevin, as we said, your first office you won was governor, that's the top office in the state for Commonwealth. Donald Trump runs for his first office, he becomes President of the United States. Why is that and what can candidates learn now? Should they be running scared? Should they walk into the fire? What should they do?
BEVIN: I mean, I'll answer that question as it relates to candidates but I will speak to why I think it even happened in my case. I've always said, listen, when people look at those that are running for office, they should be less inclined to vote for those who desperately want to be a politically elected person, and rather try to find the candidate that's willing to be that person.
And this is how I ran and I think the President did the very same thing. He did not want it as much as he was willing to do it. and Americans are hungry for that kind of sincerity from people and I mean that. I mean, there's so much fakery. There is so much posturing. When I ran, I was the only one in the race that was willing to put it in writing. Everything that I was going to do, I put out what it called a blueprint for a better Kentucky. There were seven tenets and they were all things that people said if you talk about those, let alone put them in writing you'll never ever win.
Things like right to work. Things like school of choice. Things like cutting red tape. Things like modernizing the tax code. Things like tackling the underfunded pension system. All of these that had been ignored by people and were considered third rails, do not touch them. The President did in similar ways the very same thing, talking about things that people for generations and certainly, in recent years have wanted to be talked about, have talked about in quiet little circles amongst themselves.
But the idea that somebody is willing to lead on these things, is a degree of boldness, some might see it. It's very unusual in the world of politics. And yet, people are hungry for it. It's not because everything that came out of my mouth, or his or others of the same approach is correct. It's not that the methodology is always perfect. It's not that any individual, myself or anyone else, has everything figured out.
But I always would tell people, "Listen, if you don't want me to fight for these things, don't vote for me." I've never been with people who would say, "Well, in this group you may not talk about that." I would say, "Why?" I'm not going to change what I believe or what I'm going to fight for in order to accommodate somebody. I am not going to pretend to be something I'm not in order to get a vote. It's that kind fakery that people are fed up with. And everything has become so contrived with consultants.
One thing I will share with you and it's at the heart of your question, what should candidates do? Whether they do or don't do what I am about to say is up to them. I've never paid one cent for a poll in my life, ever - not when I was a candidate, not since I've been governor. At the end of the day, speak the truth, tell people what you're going to do. Don't waver from it. Be bold in your conviction. Don't talk about things you don't know about. Talk with passion about the things you do know about. And if you are willing to be that person, people will engage. And if they don't, you should not be the person representing them.
And so to me, it's a simple approach. Shoot straight with people. Be honest. I've never ever had a speechwriter. I don't write anything out. I'd given hour and a half - at my inauguration speech, my state of the commonwealth addresses, I just talk to people. In a similar way that we are having this conversation. I will tell you this, Mark. I love America. And my reason for doing this is I love America. It does concern me.
LEVIN: Your are jittering up.
BEVIN: I'll tell you what, it is emotional to me. Because the concern that I have nine children, you mentioned, I concerns me that we are throwing away this noble experiment. That this greatness, one and a half million people have died in uniform, 1.5 million since this nation's inception and we have it so good that we do not care. This is what concerns me.
And so for me, I want people to serve in public office who love this country. The reason I respect the President, among others is that he genuinely loves America. He loves America. And he would fight to the end for America and he is doing it.
The vitriol, the scorn, the ridicule from people who aren't even worthy of carrying his water that he takes day in and day out, the mindless drivel that passes for enlightenment from people is remarkable because it's nonstop. I've never seen anything like it.
But while he's only a third generation American, he fights like somebody who is a first generation American.
My mother's father and all of her grandparents all came to Ellis Island. There is something about people who come recently to this country and the passion that they have for it, an appreciation for what liberty really is because they've come from somewhere where it isn't.
And their willingness to fight for that to preserve it for their children and their children's children is powerful. It is the greatness of America and we were losing that and we still are in some measure, but this is a President who fights for that. This is what I've been trying to fight for. What I'm trying to do is encourage one, three, five, ten, fifty other people who will in turn inspire similar amounts of people so that perhaps a generation from now, when we need the next Abraham Lincoln, that that young person will have been inspired during this period in time because somebody was willing to step up and be hammered down.
And I will tell you what, America is worth it. I will say this and your viewers probably would imagine this, but the political world is more squarely and surly and nasty than the even imagine it to be. It is more thankless. It is more of a cesspool than I wished it were. It is more bureaucratic and more mindless and more emotionally driven and less logically driven than they would even imagine it to be. And yet, somebody is going to do it. So why should the somebody not be so somebody who shares the values we have. Someone is going to make the rules.
LEVIN: So have integrity. Speak the truth. Explain the problems the country faces. Have some potential solutions and some arguments for them. Get off all the drivel. Get off all the nonsense and yet, it is difficult in some ways, isn't it? Because we are bombarded with us day in and day out.
You watch CNN, you watch MSNBC. You read "The New York Times" and these other things. It is day in and day out, day in and day out looking for little things to attack somebody or breaking down the President's tweets syllable by syllable so it really takes unique human beings to rise above that and run for public office. And you are saying that is what we must do.
BEVIN: There's a certain thickness of skin that is required, but it helps to have come from a certain background. I am blessed to be a compilation of my life experiences. I did grow up below the poverty level in a humble way, but I have served in the military. I've come up through a hard knock world as some would describe it, but I am blessed by that. It's made me strong. It's made me resilient.
I have buried my oldest child. That changes you. That affects your life in ways that I couldn't even begin to articulate. All of these life experiences allow a person to either learn from that and do for others. One of the greatest - or not or to be selfish and insular.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got, I was 17 years old and my mother, we were by this little wood stove. We had no central heat in our house, a little wood stove. It was the winter. I was cold. I was standing right by this stove my mother said, "All you kids are different." I was the second of six.
She said, "You're all going to grow up and do different things, have different abilities. You're going to pursue different things in life." She said, "Just make sure whatever you do, your father and I don't care what it is that you do exactly, just make sure that at the end of every day, you give back more than you take." How blessed I was to have been raised by a mother like that and a father like that who taught us to serve other people above ourselves.
That's what our founding fathers did. That's why George Washington asked when asked to be President, "Have I not done enough for my country? There is not a person in America, with all due respect to you, to myself, to the President, there is not one person in America that could say with a straight face, have I not done enough for my country?
LEVIN: We will be right back.
LAUREN GREEN, CORRESPONDENT, FOX NEWS: Live from "America's News Headquarters," I'm Lauren Green. Canada and the United States just reaching a deal that will preserve the three-country NAFTA trade pact. The agreement will allow greater US access to Canada's dairy market and address Canadian concerns about potential auto tariffs. Negotiators were racing to meet a US imposed September 30th deadline.
Tomorrow will be one year since the worst mass shooting in modern US history. Fifty eight people were killed and hundreds of other were injured on October 1st of last year when a gunman opened fire on a crowds for a music festival in Las Vegas. Tomorrow, the bright marquees on the strip will go dark in honor of the victims. It's just one of several remembrances planned including a blood drive, a candlelight vigil and sunrise service that would include a 58-second moment of silence. I'm Lauren Green now back to "Life, Liberty & Levin."
LEVIN: Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky, you've had an interesting road to the governorship and I think it could be illustrative to people who are running now and illustrative to people out there who are saying, but what can I do? Maybe I want to run for office, too. You were one of those people. Give us a synopsis of how this happened?
BEVIN: Sure. There's a long story and a short story.
LEVIN: Give me the in-between story.
BEVIN: It is the fact that as I alluded to earlier. I looked across the landscape and realize there need to be men and women of conviction, men and women of honor, men and women of integrity who are not owned, pre-owned before they even get into elected office by some constituency or some interest group or somebody who groomed them or anointed them, who will actually be in public office and make decisions. That there needs to be a return to a belief in and a recognition of and a utilization of, of and by and for the people. That of and by and for the people is a real thing. That it really truly only works if the people take advantage of it, if the people are engaged. And we have become sort of lost in a political malaise.
LEVIN: You were motivated by things like the Declaration of Independence.
BEVIN: Of all the crazy things, and think about this. This about our founders who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. That was not a bumper sticker. That was not a campaign slogan. They literally gave their lives, fortunes and sacred honor knowing that if in fact they were to lose, they would lose everything including their lives. And some of them did. And yet, they did it anyway.
Where are those people from among our own ranks? And so my path to this was not only to try to be what I was not seeing on the political front, to try to be an inspiration knowing that with my limitations and shortcomings that there is somebody far better than me and many bodies far better than me that could and should run and what if I could inspire them to do it by showing that a normal person can step up, take all of these things and arrows, take all the abuse, weather on through it and prove that things can be done.
LEVIN: And you announced that you are going to run and you take on the most powerful man probably in politics at the time - the Senate Republican leader, and you took a lot of slings and arrows and millions of dollars are spent to rewrite your history and to change who you are and you didn't have the funds to counter it, tell us a little bit about that.
BEVIN: Again the first time - this is my second time I ran for office was to run for governor and the first time I did run for US Senate, I ran against the then Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, I had always voted for him. I voted for him that year in the general election because relative to the alternative, he was the better choice. I do believe in the importance of voting.
I don't think people should settle per se, but you should chose the best choice out there. But I didn't vote for him when I ran against him. I voted for myself, I'll be pretty clear about that. And the reality is, is that the system needed to be shaken. It was not anything personal at all about him, not even a little bit. But the system itself had took on - think about this. When our founders started this country, they looked at the forms of government including the ones they had most recently come from and what did they intentionally do? They embraced the House of Commons concept and rejected the House of Lords.
They intentionally did not re-create that. and I say with all due respect to those who have spent their entire lives in Washington DC, we've created a modern-day incarnation of the House of Lords in the form of career politicians. We have in both parties, of all ideologies and this idea that somehow people are entitled to their seat once they have it for as long as they live and that they get to self-select and self-propagate and choose the next people that would follow them is an insult to the American people.
LEVIN: But you lost ...
BEVIN: I did.
LEVIN: But you had a big showing and starkly, you had a good showing.
BEVIN: We've got people to think and to talk.
LEVIN: And then you said okay, I'm not done. What did you do next?
BEVIN: I really wasn't planning to run again. My intent had been to rock the boat and to wake people up, to shake people from their apathy. But when I did run for governor, there were three Republicans that were already in the race, they were all good men. I knew them all. I would have voted for anyone over them over the two-term Attorney General who was going to be the likely nominee and indeed was the nominee from the other side, but I waited - I went to the first Lincoln Day Dinner. I heard all three speak and to make the long story short, I realized I thought we needed somebody to really make hard decisions.
LEVIN: So who won?
BEVIN: Two hours before the filing deadline, I filed.
LEVIN: You filed and ...
BEVIN: Not one elected Republican during the entire primary, not one elected Republican in the entire state supported me or endorsed me. I won by four ten thousands of 1%.
LEVIN: Closest votes.
BEVIN: Eighty-three votes in a statewide election. God has an amazing sense of humor. I will tell you, Mark. He really does.
LEVIN: And you won on the general election.
BEVIN: The general election.
LEVIN: Which they also didn't think you could win.
BEVIN: They said I had no chance. I was never in a margin of error for any poll that was ever done, which is why I don't put much stock in polls. None of them were done by me, they were done by other people. I was down by 5% or more in every election. I won by 9%, - more than 9%, it wasn't even close.
So I mean, my point is this, I didn't go from being five down to up nine in three days. The reality is, it goes back to that silent majority we were talking about. They do exist. They don't bumper stickers on or yard sign and sign out, but they vote because they care about their family, they care about America, they care about the future.
LEVIN: Now, this is a very, very inspirational story because you were elected in 2013, that's not that long ago. People are running out there now, members of the House, members of the Senate, Republicans who are freshly running in open seats or against incumbent Democrats. They can keep in mind your experience, I think that's very, very important.
Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget almost every weeknight you can watch Levin TV, Levin TV and see me there and join our great conservative community. Here's how you do it, go to crtv.com/mark, crtv.com/mark or give us a call at 844-LEVIN-TV, 844-LEVIN- TV. We'll be right back.
LEVIN: Governor, let's get very specific here. What do you think two, three, four, most important issues are that governments at all levels should be addressing, candidates should addressing and the American people need to be alerted to?
BEVIN: There are several things. One I've alluded to earlier, I won't go into again in great detail. Cutting that regulation. We make it so difficult for a young entrepreneur or a newly arrived American or even somebody who's been here for years to be able to pursue the American dream as we have historically known it to exist. The suffocation of overregulation and bureaucracy is destroying the innovative spirit that has made us unique among nations for generations. That's one thing.
Number two, the amount of debt that we are piling on this nation is criminal frankly. Because there is no chance that it is ever going to be repaid. Both parties are doing it. We've just most recently - this latest budget that was passed was an absolute insult and truth be told, was not the proudest moment of a Republican run administration and Congress. It just was not.
We owe better than that to the next generations. $21 trillion and counting, that fact that anybody still buys our debt under the apparent assumption that we are going to pay them back is remarkable to me, and the only reason we can play this game and we see what's happening right now in countries like Venezuela, we saw what happened in places like Zimbabwe, we saw what happened in other places around the world over the years ...
LEVIN: Greece, I mean ...
BEVIN: Greece and all these places - what happens is that eventually, the piper must be paid. We are the world's reserve currency. So we get to print it and people still buy it and we still dilute then the value of the money that has been saved and we haven't yet paid that piper, but the piper is going to get paid. Heaven help us if America is no longer the world's reserve currency and we can't print it at will. That's another topic that has got to be addressed with a sense of earnestness and seriousness because yes, you can kick it down the road for your political career, but shame on any man or woman who steps into political office and is not worried about what they are doing to the people that will follow them.
The other thing, too is the absolute crisis that is brewing in our pension systems. As surely as we're having this conversation, the pension systems - the public pension systems in America are going to collapse in the next five, ten or 15 years. They are. It's coming and people say, well there's no chapter in Bankruptcy Code for a state to declare bankruptcy. There isn't. But that does not mean they are not going to go bankrupt. That doesn't mean they are not going to become insolvent.
Kentucky has the worst funded pension system of any in America, Illinois and New Jersey and Connecticut, California. Others are down there at the bottom of the pile. This is not a place any of us would aspire to be. The PBGC, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. in the private sector, steps in and seizes a plan when it's considered to be in crisis at the risk of insolvency, they step in when the plan gets to 80% funded or less.
They seize that plan. They pay it out maybe 15 cents on the dollar and that is the end of it. There are very few public pension plans in America and in Kentucky, there is not a single one that's even close to 80% funded. Our largest in which hundreds of thousands of people are under the impression they are going to continue to get a pension benefit is 16% funded.
And I'm being being fought by people in my own party and outside might party and the media to try to save a system. I'm trying to meet the obligation, doing something that's never been done. The reality is, I've put billions and billions of dollars and at the expense of other things to try to shore up and preserve a system where promises were made, actuarial assumptions were not accurate. We've assumed rates have returned. We've made promises with nobody funding those promises and the gig is about to be up.
In America, this is probably somewhere between five and ten trillion dollar problem of unfunded liability depending on which assumptions you use or what you assume the market will produce. These are issues that people in elected office have got to take seriously. Because the greatest threat to our nation in addition to her apathy is our financial insolvency. If we can't - look, I don't mean to pick on a country, but Spain - the Spanish Armada, they once ruled the seas of the world. They had battleships in their harbors literally rusting because they can't even afford to maintain them or take them out.
If we think it can't happen to us in America - how arrogant, how delusional, how disregarding of history are we if we don't think these things could happen to us. We've got to be serious about this.
LEVIN: What's amazing is it is never discussed in the media. It's never discussed despite all the panels, despite all the guests, despite all the hosts, despite all of the 24/7 programming, it's never discussed. We'll be right back.
Governor Bevin, let's say you're wrong and there is this huge blue wave and they take the house, big numbers, they chip away at the Senate. They've already told us about impeachment, these massive investigations, I mean, the country is really going to go through some kind of hell, is it not?
BEVIN: It would be chaotic. There is no question about it and to the detriment not only to the whole political system, and of the sanity of your average person who pays attention to that but frankly, the entire foundations of this nation. It really would be. It would be very, very detrimental to our way of life.
LEVIN: And here's the thing, despite all the attacks on the President, look at the economy. The economy is chugging along beautifully, people are getting jobs, unemployment in all facets of our economy, all races, all genders - way down and regulations that you talked about, entrepreneur can develop their products and market them. Look at our foreign policy. Look at what he's done with Israel. Look at what he's done with Iran and North Korea. Look at what he's doing with China and Russia.
If the Democrats have this new massive sweep and they try to take out the President of the United States because they are furious that he dared to win in 2016, I think our enemies are going to be thrilled. I think they are going to be emboldened. I actually think this could be dangerous.
BEVIN: There is no question about it and here is the important thing for people to understand without beating the apathy drum. Again, the greatest danger is that people who love America, who value the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, who do believe in the Constitutional principles upon which we are founded, if they sit at home, if they don't get engaged and I would encourage your listeners to not just themselves, but to find one, three, five, ten, 50 and a hundred people, use social media it's a powerful tool, use word-of-mouth, talk to people at church, talk to people at work, talk to people wherever you happen to go and spend your time and encourage them to get out and vote and to vote their values and not their party.
This is an important thing for people to understand. The values we're talking about are shared by people of all political stripes. This is not a time to be partisan. This is not a time to think about what is in your party's best interest, but think about which values this nation was built on, which values matter to you as an individual, to a community and to us as a nation and to vote those values and not your party.
LEVIN: Can you also imagine what would happen to our courts? To the Supreme Court? Can you imagine if this President can't put his imprint on the courts the way Obama did which was massive ideological change in the circuit court and so forth. We seem to be in a position that a if Republican or Donald Trump wins and the Republicans take the House and Senate, it is intolerable because the trajectory is to centralize all- powerful progressive government. And so they're trying to undo the election.
They talk about impeaching Kavanaugh. They talk about impeaching Clarence Thomas. They talk about impeaching the President of the United States. Have you heard talk like this before?
BEVIN: No, I mean, literally this is what the East refer to as sedition. And the reality is this, it's the last recourse for small minds. When they cannot be apologists for their own line of thinking, they run to the courts and they try to find people who will paint people in little corners. It is the hobgoblin of little minds is this kind of behavior, it really is.
LEVIN: We'll be right back.
Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky. I'm going to ask you a question I ask a lot of guests here. Where do you see this nation in five to ten years.
BEVIN: It depend on us. It depends on the people. It depends on the electorate. Winston Churchill was often referred to as the lion of England. And he, while he wasn't a humble man didn't particularly like that moniker and he once duly noted, he said, "I am not the lion." He said, the people of England are the lions. He said, "The history has called upon me to deliver the roar." We are at a similar point in our nation's history.
And the question is, for your viewers and for the voters and for the people of America, are we prepared and are we willing to step up? Are we willing in each of our own respective ways to deliver the roar? Are we ready to do it? Are we willing to do it? It may not be easy. It may not be fun. That's what's going to determine the trajectory of America. It really is.
If this is a gift, this noble experiment we have been given at great sacrifice, this freedom that we talk about as you know was paid for by those we talked about earlier. What are we going to do with this gift? Are we going to squander it?
LEVIN: And we are running out of time ...
BEVIN: We are running out of time, I'll tell you what, because we have it so good. And this is why I encourage people, talk to your children, vote your values, be engaged. It matters.
LEVIN: It's been a pleasure.
BEVIN: Thank you.
LEVIN: Governor, thanks so much.
BEVIN: You too.
LEVIN: Check us out next time on "Life, Liberty & Levin."
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