What Democrats Can Learn From Gretchen Whitmer

Gretchen Whitmer is one of the names you often see on lists of Democratic V. P. contenders. She’s swatted that speculation down repeatedly, but the interest in her makes a lot of sense. Michigan is a must-win state for Democrats, and she has won the governorship of that state twice, by significant margins each time. She’s also long been one of the Democratic Party’s most talented and forthright messengers on abortion. So I think Whitmer has a lot to teach Democrats right now, whether she’s Kamala Harris’s running mate or not. In this conversation we discuss how her 2018 campaign slogan to “fix the damn roads” has translated into a governing philosophy, how she talks about reproductive rights in a swing state, what Democrats can learn from the success of female politicians in Michigan, how she sees the gender politics of the presidential election this year and more. Mentioned: True Gretch by Gretchen Whitmer “The Spartan: Why Gretchen Whitmer Has What It Takes for a White House Run” by Jennifer Palmieri “America’s New Political War Pits Young Men Against Young Women” by Aaron Zitner and Andrew Restuccia Book Recommendations: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin Burn Book by Kara Swisher To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by our senior editor, Claire Gordon. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith, Kristin Lin and Aman Sahota. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Isaac Jones.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Ezra Klein?

  From New York Times Opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show.

• 0:23Ezra Klein?

  So it is Monday, July 29 when I'm recording this, and we are deep in the pivotal week of Vice President Harris's veep sticks. It is reported that she will make her decision by August 7. And as somebody who wanted to see a sort of mini primary for Democrats, who made the argument that at the very least, there should be a sort of contest of the vice presidential candidates and town halls and forums in an organized way, what has emerged in a disorganized way is much more like what I had hoped to see than I had ever expected. I mean, we've been watching Pete Buttigieg and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Andy Beshear of Kentucky

• 1:04Ezra Klein?

  just sort of fanning out across speeches, across MSNBC and CNN on social media, demoing how they would try to take J.D. Vance apart in a debate. One person we have not heard as much from is Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Whitmer said she is not interested in the vice presidency. At the same time, there was reporting that she was being vetted. She denied that reporting. But Whitmer is an interesting figure for Democrats. She was considered by Joe Biden for Vice President in 2020. She has won the governorship of Michigan twice by significant margins each time. And she made her name nationally when she was the state senate minority leader, fighting against a very anti-abortion bill.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  I have a lot more prepared remarks here, but I think it's important for me to just mention a couple of things.

• 1:55Ezra Klein?

  When she gave a speech on the floor of the senate, revealing, which is something even her own father had not known, that she'd been raped in college.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  And so I'm about to tell you something that I've not shared with many people in my life. But over 20 years ago, I was a victim of rape. And thank God, it didn't result in a pregnancy. Because I can't imagine going through what I went through and then having to consider what to do about an unwanted pregnancy.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  From an attacker. And as a mother with two girls that thought that they would ever go through something like I did, keeps me up at night. I thought this was all behind me. You know how tough I can be. The thought and the memory of that still haunts me. If this were law then, and I had become pregnant, I would not be able to have coverage because of this. How extreme? How extreme does this measure need to be?

• 3:05Ezra Klein?

  After that speech, Whitmer became a national voice on abortion, not just a Michigan voice on it. She became somebody you would see on cable news, somebody the party turned to to think about how to talk about this issue. She won the governorship in Michigan on a Fix the Damn Roads platform in 2018. And then in 2022, the Dobbs decision came down. She ran for reelection, putting abortion at the center of her campaign. So there's a lot, I think, to learn from Whitmer's campaigns here, both in terms of how to run and win in Michigan, which is something Democrats very much need to do this year, but also in terms of how to make elections about the thing you want them to be about.

• 3:49Ezra Klein?

  She's also the author of a new book, True Gretchen, which is now a New York Times bestseller. As always, my email, [email protected]. Governor Gretchen Whitmer, welcome to the show.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  Thank you. I'm glad to be with you.

• 4:08Ezra Klein?

  So in 2018, you ran on one of my very favorite campaign slogans, which is Fix the Damn Roads. In the book, you tell a story about how that slogan came about. How did it come about?

• 4:21Speaker 02

  So when I decided to jump in and run for governor of Michigan, I know Michigan is a huge state, and I wanted to get into all 83 counties. I know that I'm always learning when I'm showing up and asking people what I could do that might make their life better, what's going on in their world, and It was over and over again in response to that question, whether I was in the most rural part of the state, or downtown Detroit, or Grand Rapids, people would often reply, "Fix the damn roads." And ultimately, I started talking about it the same way. I think for people, it was a daily reminder of an area in their life where government's not getting the job done, and that's why it was top of mind. But it was really a conversation that I had

• 5:04Speaker 02

  with a woman in the Detroit Children's Hospital that crystallized everything for me. This was a mom, her son is there, he's in a brace, and she's obviously focused on her child. I asked her, "What could I do that would make your life better if I get elected governor?" And she looked me in the eye and said, "Fix the damn roads." And I was not expecting that response, especially in that situation. I figured she'd want to talk about healthcare, or childcare, or education, something about what she was there for that day. And so I wanted to follow up. I said, "Tell me more. Why is this the first thing on your mind as you think about what you need done?" And she explained to me.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  She's from Flint, Michigan, north of Detroit, and she was driving to Detroit to go visit her son and hit a pothole that absolutely destroyed the rim on her wheel. It sidelined her for a whole day. She had to go get her car fixed. She had to spend hundreds of dollars she wasn't planning to spend. She never got to see her son in the hospital that day, had to pay for childcare for the other two kids who were at home. And it was just such a massive hit to her and her family, money out of rent or childcare. And that's why she said, "Fix the damn roads." And so that conversation with Bridgette Bonds is something that I include in the book because, yes, it was a great tagline for a campaign,

• 6:32Speaker 02

  but it was really focused on people. And it resonated with people. And it was through that act, and that sometimes lost art of listening to other people, that led me to that phrase, "Fix the damn roads."

• 6:45Ezra Klein?

  I want to know why you think it resonated with people. So I've covered a lot of campaigns and campaign slogans are generally a very wide blank canvas on which people can imagine their own version of the campaign. Hope and change, make America great again. I've heard make America, America again, putting people first, right? These, most campaign slogans have a tendency to try to say everything and nothing at the same time. This was very, very narrow, very specific. Why did it work?

• 7:19Speaker 02

  I think it worked because it came from the people. You know, I've been asked, what is the next campaign slogan going to be? And I would say, I don't know. I'm going to ask people, what do they need? When you do that, I think it helps give you confidence that you're focusing on the right things. It also resonates with people. The thing that you learn when you're talking to people and you're listening to them. Fix the damn roads resonated because everyone, no matter what status you are in life or what part of the state you live in, after decades of disinvestment, everyone was feeling the pain of that. And so this was something that kind of took the politics out of the political conversation and said, let's just be practical. Let's do the things that are going to make your life better or easier or your business

• 8:03Speaker 02

  thrive, fixing roads.

• 8:05Ezra Klein?

  You win that election. You come into office with a Republican legislature. They don't want to fix the damn roads, or at least they don't want to pay for fixing the damn roads. You proposed a gas tax to fund road construction that the tax was rejected, didn't even make it into a vote. So what did you do?

• 8:25Speaker 02

  Well, first goal is always to find common ground and work with people. But if they're not going to be partners, then I'm going to work around them. And so we did a bond. I was able to get a lot of long overdue resources into our infrastructure. And to be honest, a lot of the Biden Harris work and around infrastructure, I know every president talks about infrastructure week, but this presidency actually sent resources to state to do more on fixing the damn roads as well as dams and bridges and internet. There, we're doing a lot on the infrastructure front. And if someone wants to be a partner, I'll always make a seat at the table for you. But if you're not going to work with me, well, I'll roll up my sleeves and work around you.

• 9:11Ezra Klein?

  You have a line in your book where you write, quote, "If there's any one motto I live by in my political career, it's get shit done." How did that become the motto?

• 9:21Speaker 02

  One of the things that we know is that a chief executive doesn't just take positions on issues like folks in legislative bodies. We've got to deliver. I have had to sit at the table with Republican leaders in my first term, who shared stages with the men that were plotting to kidnap and to kill me. I can't hold a grudge. I can't throw a punch. I'm capable of it, throwing a punch. But I can't do it as a chief executive because at the end of the day, I got to get shit done. I got to get a budget done. I've got to be able to negotiate with the legislature on what that budget's priorities are.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  And so I think it's an executive mentality that we can't slow down. We've got to move fast. We've got to be nimble. Sometimes we're going to get it right. Other times, we're going to have to adjust course. But at the end of the day, my job is to get shit done for the people in Michigan, and that's what we do.

• 10:20Ezra Klein?

  I was looking in to try to understand whether or not the roads got fixed. And I saw a lot of coverage of it. But I found this one Reddit thread of people in Michigan saying, "Well, did Governor Whitmer fix them roads?" It was saying, "Yeah, it's unbelievably annoying. There's construction everywhere now. Everything's getting fixed. I can't drive anywhere." So that made me think you actually did get something significant done there. The next election, you don't run on roads. You run on row. And you don't just run on it rhetorically. You're challenging a 1931 anti-abortion law on Michigan's books in court. You have a ballot measure protecting or codifying access to reproductive freedom. Tell me about how that campaign for reelection as governor,

• 11:04Ezra Klein?

  which happens after Dobbs, differed from the 2018 race and how you thought about it differently.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Well, you know, Ezra, I have been in office in Michigan for the better part of the last 25 years, and I have been on the front line making the case on behalf of women's reproductive freedom. When we saw the Ruth Bader Ginsburg's passing, I knew that there was a very real possibility that Donald Trump would make another appointment to the court. And despite what his appointees said to Congress that they thought Roe was settled law, I didn't believe them. So I got to work with my legal team. We filed a lawsuit in Michigan to ask our court to determine, under the state constitution, that women have that right

• 11:53Speaker 02

  to privacy, that the right to choose comes from, and filed that lawsuit. And I took a lot of grief for it. A lot of people said, "Well, you're overreacting," or "It's premature. You don't have standing yet. There's no case that's been decided." And yet, we forged ahead, and I was really glad for it, because when the Dobbs decision came down, it was because of my lawsuit that women in Michigan had access to abortion care throughout the pending days and weeks that took us to collect signatures and put the matter before the

• 12:30Speaker 02

  voters. So I do talk a lot about abortion in my book, because I gave a speech in 2013 and shared that I was a survivor of rape when I was in college. 10 years to that day, I was able to repeal the law that I couldn't beat down at that moment. But I do use this to remind people, never give up. These fights are worth having. We are on the right side of these issues. And if you feel that strongly about a right that's threatened or being taken away, we got to fight for it, even if it takes longer than it should. And so, as we went into the reelection in 2022, a lot of folks were making the assumption that,

• 13:15Speaker 02

  after the pandemic and all the heat and ugliness that came my way, and with a Democrat in the White House, I'd never get reelected. But I was out there talking about our reproductive freedom, doing roundtables with women and our allies across the state to give people the ability to weigh in and tell me what's going on and why this right matters so much. And not only did I get reelected by almost 11 points in a state like Michigan, which is pretty remarkable, we got the Constitution amended so that we did protect our rights. But all this still remains in jeopardy. And that's why I'm such an enthusiastic supporter and co-chair of the Harris campaign. I know she can and has and will continue

• 14:00Speaker 02

  to fight for a woman's reproductive freedom.

• 14:03Ezra Klein?

  That was a very big election. I mean, as you mentioned, you won by almost 11. The ballot measure protecting abortion rights, that won by 13. It ran even ahead of you. Democrats took control of the Michigan Legislature for the first time in 40 years. So what have you learned running on reproductive rights in a swing state about which arguments work and which arguments don't work on this issue?

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Well, I appreciate that question. I'll share this. I think one of the things that has become very clear to me is we have done ourselves a huge disservice by calling an abortion procedure by any other name. So let me explain what I mean by that. When a woman goes through IVF and they implant multiple embryos to increase the likelihood that one of them will implant and ultimately end in a live birth of a baby. When you have multiple that do, I think, look as though they're going to make it, sometimes they will do what they call selective reduction. That's an abortion. That is aborting an embryo that has been implanted

• 15:15Speaker 02

  to increase the likelihood that another one will survive and result in the birth of a baby. Another example is when a woman has a miscarriage at home, but it doesn't complete and she needs to go to the hospital to have that completed. Some people call that a DNC. It's an abortion. And so I think it's really important to use the language. That is all the same type of healthcare. And as we got around the state in 2022 in preparations for the election, these roundtables shed so much light on what was going on with people. And I think humanized the issue for many voters. When you sit across the table and a woman shows up and she's in a wheelchair

• 15:59Speaker 02

  and explains and educates everyone around the table, as well as the media in the room, that people with disabilities are more vulnerable to sexual assault. She shared as well that if she was assaulted and it resulted in a pregnancy, she would die if she had was forced to carry that pregnancy. And so it was an eye opener for everyone at the table. And I think it's those stories that humanize this moment for people. I sat across the table from a different woman who had seven pregnancies. She shared with everyone there and you could tell it was very hard for her to talk about. She had a live birth and then a miscarriage, then a miscarriage and then a live birth.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  And so like between every pregnancy, she had a miscarriage. So three of those pregnancies ended in miscarriage. Three of them, she had three daughters. And then she got pregnant a seventh time, even though they were using birth control. She and her husband chose to have an abortion because they have a child who's on the autism spectrum. And they don't have the resources and bandwidth to bring another person into the family without compromising everyone's ability. And so I think that those stories matter. When people can understand this is the most personal question any one of us will ever confront.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  It carries the biggest economic impact when and whether to bring a child into the world. And it can only be made by that woman. And so that, I think, is the most powerful way to message on this. That is individual liberty and health, and it should be vested in that individual. And government needs to get the heck out of it. And then the other piece of that is to remind people, the most consequential economic decision any of us will make in our lifetime is whether and when to have a child. And the only one who can know the answer to that is the individual.

• 17:56Ezra Klein?

  How do you approach disagreement here? One of the threads running through your book is how hard you try to find the good or the point of commonality, even in people who disagree with you, fight you, insult you, plot against you at times. Obviously, people who have deep pro-life beliefs, those beliefs are held sincerely. How do you talk with them about it?

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Well, that's why I raise that example of someone with IVF. I do think that there is some room for common ground, even on this issue. I hear Republicans say they don't want to take away a person's ability to access IVF. But then I watch how they vote, or I read what they write in their Project 2025. And so I do think that the average person agrees that this is a highly personal decision. And so even if their political party is listed as Republican on their voter ID or whatever else they might identify that way, I'm going to try to engage.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  Because once you see the humanity involved, I think that changes everything. And I would share this too. As in those roundtables across Michigan, I sat across from people that we invited. We didn't screen them and make sure they were all in the same place we were. But we wanted real voices at the table. And I had a number of Republicans sitting across from me who said, "I am not a Democrat. I did not vote for you in 2018. But I'm here and I'm going to help you because you're the only one fighting for this most important freedom to me and my daughters. And so that's why I'm here." And I think that that shows, even on this issue, we can draw people into the conversation and maybe find common ground.

• 19:48Ezra Klein?

  I want to play you a clip of J.D. Vance talking about this issue on a podcast a couple of years ago.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Okay, look, here's a situation. Let's say Roe versus Wade is overruled. Ohio bans abortion in 2022, let's say 2024. And then, you know, every day, George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately black women to get them to go have abortions in California. And of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity. That's kind of creepy.

• 20:23Speaker 04

  Health justice, health justice is only for black people.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  Something like that could, I mean, that would be a really weird turn of events that could happen, yes. And it's like, if that happens, do you need some federal response to prevent it from happening? Because it's really creepy. And, you know, I'm pretty sympathetic to that, actually.

• 20:43Ezra Klein?

  If he was your opponent in a campaign in Michigan, how would you respond to that?

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Well, it's really stunning how he combined misogyny, antisemitism, and racism all in one response. I mean, that is some of the worst of what we're seeing in terms of political rhetoric that is used to inflame, or mislead, or divert your attention from what's really at stake here. He has many different personas, apparently. The only word he used that I agree with is creepy, because I think that the strange metamorphosis of J.D. Vance is something that I can't get my head around. At the end of the day, every one of us should have the right to access the health care that we need. Every one of us should have the right to make choices about our bodies and our future,

• 21:34Speaker 02

  and the government should get the heck out of it.

• 21:59Ezra Klein?

  Donald Trump's position is that he just wanted to return this to the states. And I'll play you a clip from him as well, because he's certainly trying to move at least a part of his positioning on this.

• 22:11Speaker 05

  My view is now that we have abortion, where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote, or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land, in this case, the law of the state. Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others, and that's what they will be. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.

• 22:42Ezra Klein?

  What's your response to that?

• 22:43Speaker 02

  The will of the people was that each of us has the ability to access health care and make our own decisions. You look at J.D. Vance's own state of Ohio. The voters said overwhelmingly, "Stop messing with these rights." We saw that in Kansas, and Kentucky, and Michigan, et cetera. The people of this country, I think, have been sold a bill of goods, and we know that the former president has had, I don't know, 18 different positions on abortion. He's going to say whatever he thinks is going to help him get elected in the moment. What we really deserve is someone who's going to talk straight to us, deliver for us, and fight for our freedoms.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  And that's why I think this matchup between Trump and Vance versus Harris and whomever she chooses is going to be stark, and it's going to be a reminder to all of us, even in states where we've secured this right. We can't for one second assume this fight is over.

• 23:40Ezra Klein?

  Let me focus on my question of delivering. One problem Democrats have running on Roe, on Dobbs, is that the Senate filibuster makes it impossible for them to credibly promise to pass a federal law restoring Roe. When you ran in your reelection campaign, you had a ballot measure that was going to enshrine this in the Constitution. They can't really promise that. They're not going to get 60 votes in the Senate. They don't have the votes to get rid of the filibuster. At least, I don't think they do. So in terms of making this concrete, in terms of actually promising something you can deliver, which it seems to me is a hallmark of how you run, what's your pitch for what Democrats should promise to do if they win? What would be credible and real?

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Well, I know that President Biden is talking about some Supreme Court reform. I think that's interesting. I'm not, he's not fleshed everything out. At least, I've not seen it yet. So I can't talk a whole lot more on the substance of.

• 24:35Ezra Klein?

  But that would have the filibuster problem, too.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  It would. And, you know, I am not a Washington insider. I've always been based in Michigan. It's home and it's what I love. But I do think that, you know, at this point, we're fighting on the ground and state by state. It's a terrible situation because you've got a third of the population is under some really extremely restrictive and punitive and cruel policies that make women second-class citizens. And we're fighting state by state right now. But ultimately, we do not want a national abortion ban, which is what I know Donald Trump has suggested is something he'd sign more than once. So I do think that this election matters. Can we undo everything in one fell swoop?

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Probably not because of what you've pointed out with regard to filibuster. But we, at the very least, need good people who are going to stop the continued erosion of these rights right now.

• 25:31Ezra Klein?

  This is way in which a 2018 Fix a Damn Roads campaign can feel very pragmatic and non ideological. A Republican could want to fix the damn roads too. And the 2022 campaign on Fix a Damn Row feels much sharper edged and more ideological. But both campaigns are focused on something you could actually do. And in 2022, you had the ballot measure as well, showing that there was something really people could do. And this feels important to me. How do you think about making the stakes of campaigns of government tangible and realistic to people when so many people are so cynical about whether anything actually changes depending on who gets elected?

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's challenging, right? Because we do have so many candidates who will promise the moon and stars when they don't have any ability to deliver it. And I don't have a lot of patience for that, to be honest. In my first election for governor, I had some opponents who were talking about how they were going to deliver universal healthcare in Michigan. And I think it's a value we all have. But I know enough about state government to know what I can and can't do. I also know enough about politics in Michigan and how the lines are drawn for our legislature, especially when we were in 2018, about what was doable and not doable. And I'm not going to promise people to do something that I

• 26:57Speaker 02

  know I can't accomplish. I'd rather be the person who sets optimistic expectations, but realistic as well. And I do worry about people losing faith in government because so many people exaggerate what they can accomplish. I do worry about people checking out because over and over again, these people who make these fake promises don't deliver. And then they think we're all that same way, and that government can never get anything done. So I think it's not just smart to manage expectations and over deliver. I think it's responsible too, because we can't let more people Be frustrated with government and check out. We need people to check in more than ever.

• 27:41Ezra Klein?

  With Vice President Harris becoming the the top of the ticket, we're hearing a lot of people's theories, fears, excitement about what it means to to again have a woman running for president. And I was struck by a profile of you by Jen Palmieri in Vanity Fair, where she noted that now six of Michigan's 13 House seats are are held by women. The Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Senate Majority Leader, and of course, you, the Governor, are women. That the last male office holder to newly win statewide in in Michigan was Gary Peters in 2014. So does the success of of female politicians in Michigan have any lessons for for Democrats in this wider election? Or at least how they should think or what they should or should not worry about in this election?

• 28:25Speaker 02

  I do think that there is a lesson to be taken. I mean, the reason the whole world is going to be focusing on Michigan and a handful of states is because we are a microcosm of the country. We're a swing state and we, I think, have rich diversity. And so for all of these reasons, Michigan takes on a a heightened importance in in elections. I think that, you know, always being cognizant of the fact that that is the case centers me as a as a leader and as a Michigander, who was raised by a Republican father and a Democratic mother, back in the day when you could still have a marriage of mixed political parties.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  All of that being said, we got to be able to to get things done and deliver for people. And in this environment, it's very challenging. But I also think it's that much more rewarding when you're able to show, yes, we can get things done and this is how government should work.

• 29:27Ezra Klein?

  You sort of sidestep the question on on gender itself there. Do you think there's anything to learn in the success of women politicians in Michigan in particular? Are there different ways that one runs? Or are there just? I hear a lot in Democratic strategist circles of, you know, what you have to do to be strong, what you have to do to to sidestep things that the electorate might assume about you. There's, I think, a frightened hangover from Hillary Clinton. But at the same time, like, I know the political science here, and women candidates do great. So I'm curious what the lessons of Michigan are on that specifically.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  I'm so glad you reminded me that that was part of your question. I knew I missed something. You know, in Michigan, with all these women at the top in these important executive offices, all at the same time, I can tell you, every single one of us was told at some point in our political journey to these offices, we can't have too many women on the ticket. Every one of us ignored that noise and showed that when we are on the ticket, when we work together, when we give one another legitimacy and space to show up as we are, we all win. We win literally in that election, but we, as a state, win too, because we are now

• 30:47Speaker 02

  setting an agenda that is a lot more inclusive. And so when people look at this presidential matchup, I know that Vice President Harris has got the benefit of Hillary Clinton doing this already once. No, she didn't take the office, but she ran a campaign, and that gives Vice President Harris more license to show up as she is. And people respond to that. But it was because there was someone who made the path a little bit easier. And I often think about Jennifer Granholm, who was governor of Michigan before I was. She made it a little easier for me to show up. And so I do think that there are so many gender aspects to this upcoming election. And I hear the commentary, she's got to

• 31:31Speaker 02

  have a white man running mate. I don't know that I buy that, looking at our experience in Michigan. I do think she's got a lot of great people from whom to choose a running mate, and it's going to be a great ticket. But I am mindful that our job is to make sure we keep showing up as we are and make the path for the people who come after us a little bit easier.

• 32:19Ezra Klein?

  People talk a lot about women and gender when women run, but I actually want to talk about masculinity and gender when men run, because this election feels very strangely gendered to me with Trump and Vance. And this is true before Joe Biden stepped aside. I mean, I think if you watched Trump's night of the RNC and watched Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt, and you see Dana White introducing Donald Trump, there was a kind of, I mean, it felt very, actually, Judith Butlerian, like, almost like a gender play of masculinity happening. And it seems very, there's something strange about it this year. Vance's comments about cat ladies, about people without children not having a stake in the future of the country.

• 33:04Ezra Klein?

  It feels very insecure and overdone. I've had a little bit of trouble putting my own hands around it. But for all the talk of Kamala Harris as a woman atop the ticket, this sort of gender and family, politics and presentation of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance has had a strange, I guess, maybe Governor Tim Walz would call it weird, dimension to it. And I'm curious what you've made of that side of it and what you think its roots in our politics right now are.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  I think that really struck me watching the Republican convention as well. I think he also walked out to "It's a man's world." I think that the language and all the strange, weird things that they have said over the years really ultimately are small. You know, I can't help but think about something that Bill Clinton said, which is, "Strong and wrong beats weak and right every time." And I thought about that in the first presidential debate. I think about that with regard to Donald Trump. But the funny thing is, in this vein, it's really small and weak.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  Strength is having the humility and wisdom to make a seat at the table for others, to recognize not one of us has all the answers, which is why many voices need to be at a table, real diversity, real representation, real empowerment. And so those visuals from that last night at the RNC, I think, are going to be in sharp contrast to what I anticipate will be a joyful, happy warrior-type event at the DNC. And in my book, the last chapter is called "The Happy Warrior." It was advice that a debate coach gave me, and he said, "The happy warrior wins every debate.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  You gotta be tough, but you don't have to be tough and mean. You can be tough and joyful, or tough and kind at the same time." And I think that's a striking difference from what you're going to see in Chicago versus what we saw in Milwaukee.

• 35:14Ezra Klein?

  That debate coach also had some counsel for you on what to draw on a sheet of paper to remind yourself to be a happy warrior. That counsel didn't quite take, but something else did. Do you want to say what it is that you use to remind yourself to be a happy warrior?

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Okay, I'll tell the editors to get ready to bleep. So... During that debate, the coach also said to remind yourself to be a happy warrior. When you go into any debate and you go to the podium and there are blank pages there, take your pen and write a big smiley face at the top of the blank page to remind yourself to smile and be happy. Now, like probably every person on the planet who's ever been told to smile, it has the opposite impact. So I knew writing a smiley face was going to irritate me, not make me feel joyful. So I went to, I've been thinking about what could I write at the top that'll keep me loose and happy? I couldn't come up with anything, but I was going to a Kevin Hart concert at Little

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Caesars Arena in downtown Detroit. A man named Naim Lin opened up for Kevin Hart. And he was talking about how women today are so much more empowered, right? This is stand up in Detroit saying, back in the day, if you wanted to see your girlfriend, but she was menstruating, she would come up with some demure, kind of obtuse excuse for why you couldn't come over. She'd say something like, oh, my aunt's in town. Aunt Flo, right? So that was the code, trying not to say I'm on my period or whatever. He said, women today are way more empowered. If you say, I want to come over and see you, and it's that time of the month, she'll say, you're not coming over because it's Shark Week, motherfucker.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  And that cultivated the happy warrior in me. That, I thought, was so funny. It's about women's empowerment. And so on the top of my notes, I would write SW comma MF to remind me to stay loose. And so before every big speech, one of my staff people, Zach, who's been with me since the campaign and through all these years as governor, always says, Governor, don't forget it's Shark Week. And as I was going to give my speech for the DNC four years ago, it was virtual because of COVID, he said, Governor, don't forget it's Shark Week. And I said, oh, no, it's Shark Week. And then I mouthed. Motherfucker. But what I didn't anticipate was that the DNC,

• 37:41Speaker 02

  this is before I went live, by the way. I didn't anticipate the DNC would somehow let that footage out and that the world would see. That's what I was really saying. So I was initially very embarrassed and dismayed that that was public. And then people started making T-shirts and candles. And it's become this hilarious kind of call to action. And so I do apparently love Shark Week because of what's on television, but also every week in this business is Shark Week.

• 38:08Ezra Klein?

  Yeah, I can imagine that. I also did not know that ended up showing up on a candle. I want to ask one more question on the gender dimension of the election, because you could talk about the top of the tickets, but there's also something changing down in the electorate. So the Wall Street Journal had this huge story over the weekend on the gender gap opening among voters under 30. So in 2020, voters under 30 went in big for Joe Biden. And this story is built on a poll when Biden was still in the race. But in this poll, Biden had a 30-point lead in 2024 now among women under 30. And Trump had a 14-point lead among men under 30. The poll asked after a huge number of issues, young men

• 38:49Ezra Klein?

  had become much more conservative than than young women. I'm curious why you think that is. This is a much bigger gap than we've seen among young people in the last couple of elections. We're seeing it in a lot of polls, not just one. I'm curious if you notice it when you're out on the trail. And I'm curious if you have a view on what is sort of shifting young men to the right.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  Well, one of the things that I think is a source of pride for us is that in Michigan, we had the highest youth voter turnout in the country in 2022. I mean, it was incredible. Ezra, I went to campuses at like 8 o'clock in the morning on a Friday. We didn't even offer free food and we had hundreds of people showing up. It was really exciting. And I think my big concern going into this election is we've seen not a lot of enthusiasm among younger voters. Now, that's changed quite a bit since Kamala Harris is at the top of the ticket. And I think that's really exciting. But I do worry that, like every age group, the divisive politics, the divisive rhetoric, the threats, the villainization of your fellow

• 39:54Speaker 02

  Americans is taking a deep toll.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Tell me what you're going to do for me. Don't tell me why I should be mad or hate everyone. What are you going to do for me? How are you going to make my life better? And I do think that that's what we are going to continue to focus on. But it worries me, this polarization. We've got to be able to talk to one another because one thing I know, there's no way you find common ground with people if you can't even have a conversation with them. And it's really hard in this climate.

• 40:24Ezra Klein?

  But there's something specific here among young men. When I talk to some young men, or when I read the surveys, or listen to the focus groups, or read the books, or go on the Reddit threads, the thing I see them saying is something. Well, one, there's like real problems for young men. Richard Reeves and others have written about that. A lot of their sort of job and wage and mental health outcomes have gotten a lot worse. But pretty over the past couple of years, a lot of them have come to this view that, you know, that the Democrats don't like them, or liberals don't like them, that, you know, the future is female, that a lot of traditionally male traits are sort of seen as less wanted, at least in the liberal coalition, that they feel liked by the right.

• 41:09Ezra Klein?

  And they feel disliked, looked down on, like they're sort of always under suspicion on the left, that they're sort of always like a predator waiting to happen. Now, I'm not endorsing this view, but I do see it quite a bit. And I do see the sort of frustration at the way they feel that to be a man is to be viewed as, you know, sort of teetering on the edge of going bad. Whereas like the accomplishments of women are something to be celebrated, to be honored. I'm curious if you see that, or if you, you know, how you would answer to somebody who does feel that, who does feel that among Democrats, among liberals, they're not discriminated against, but they're just not well liked. They don't feel like they have quite a place.

• 41:55Ezra Klein?

  The future is not, in that coalition, supposed to be them anymore.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  I think the most powerful thing we can do is seek to understand, right? In the book, I quote Ted Lasso, who incorrectly quotes Walt Whitman, but be curious, not judgmental, essentially, is one of the important lessons that I live by and that I like try to comport myself by every single day. You know, if there are people who are feeling unincluded, we need to understand why. You know, one of the things that I recall is when I first became governor and when I was running, I was in an event and someone said, can you say Black Lives Matter? All right, we've come a long way since then, right? But obviously, there's still a ton of work to do, but people are comfortable saying

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Black Lives Matter, yes. When you say that Black Lives Matter doesn't mean that no one else's lives matter, it's an acknowledgement that there is a segment of our population that is disproportionately hurt when they have encounters with with police officers. And that's why it's important that we are educating and making opportunities available and and learning and and holding accountable. That is true in this moment as well. If someone is feeling unheard, unseen, excluded, we're not doing as good a job as we need to because the Democratic Party is one where every person matters and there is a a path to prosperity for every person.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  It also recognizes that there have been historical barriers for people and we seek to eliminate those as well. You can be both.

• 43:35Ezra Klein?

  When you took office in 2019, you circulated a one-page document on how you wanted the government to run, your administration to run. And The Washington Post reported on some of it. And I found it very interesting. It said, among other things, quote, "Meetings were to be held without phones and according to her," her being you, "her rules of pathological punctuality," meaning if you're on time, you're late. "Be present," she wrote. "Don't waste time. No distractions." Tell me a bit about your philosophy of of meetings.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Well, I think it it all comes back to respect and it all comes back to understanding that these positions are an honor to hold, even on the hardest day. It's an honor to be the governor of Michigan and my whole team needs to understand that as well. And that's what it's about. You know, in the end of the book, I close with a story about my grandfather, Dana P. Whitmer, who was superintendent of Pontiac Schools during the time of court-ordered busing.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Pontiac was a district where they were required to bus children of color into the school district and the white parents in the district were protesting. The Ku Klux Klan in Howell, Michigan targeted my grandparents and bombed buses in Pontiac. My grandfather was in Time Magazine. And I share that story because when everything is so heavy, we've got to look to leaders who came before us. And I'm honored to have this lineage. But also, one of Dana P. Whitmer's philosophies was, you show up early. If you're on time, you're late. And if you're late, you don't get into the meeting. And he would notoriously start his meetings on time and lock the doors to the meeting room.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  So if you weren't early, you missed the meeting and everyone knew it. He was, you know, pathologically punctual. Just, I guess that's where I get it from.

• 45:30Ezra Klein?

  Tell me about the phone side of it, though. Because I'm in a lot of meetings with phones, with laptops. Why did you say no phones in the meetings?

• 45:39Speaker 02

  My personal experience has been, I am a much active listener and absorb the information and process it if I got a pen and paper in front of me, instead of a distraction which a phone can bring in all sorts of information. I know some young people, and my kids included, use their technology to take their notes. But I prefer paper and pen. I get that from my father. There's an interstitial in the book about the power and the importance of taking notes. But I really learned in law school, the way for me to best process important information is to write it down in the moment and to stay engaged.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  And I think technology has done some wonderful things, but it also, I think, has really cheapened our time together when it is a part of it.

• 46:29Ezra Klein?

  Then, speaking of pen and paper, always our final question. What are three books you'd recommend to the audience?

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Okay. I am, right now, reading some fiction, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, which is a great book. I've loved it. Burn Book by Kara Swisher is a great book. And, I mean, classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, my all-time favorite.

• 46:52Ezra Klein?

  Governor Gretchen Whitmer, thank you very much.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 47:10Ezra Klein?

  This episode of The Other Klein Show is produced by our senior editor, Claire Gordon. We've had fact checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. The show's production team also includes Annie Galvin, Roland Hu, Elias Isquith, Kristin Lin, and Aman Sahota. We have original music by Isaac Jones, audience strategy by Kristina Sami-Lusky, and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie Roast-Rauser, and special thanks to Sonia Herrero.