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August 22, 2025 • 13 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now on Colorado's Morning News.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Much happening nationally, globally and locally, and whenever we get
to discuss the issues we care about or directly impact
US is and also an opportunity to get some answers
and ask some questions.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Joining us now in studio and the KOA Common Spirit
Health Studio. It's Senator Michael Bennett, Senator, welcome, Thank you,
it's great to be back. Glad that you made it
here without a flat tire.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah, I am too.

Speaker 4 (00:22):
I picked up my car on the way in and
we finally got some tires replaced, so this shouldn't happen.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Good then, yeah, good.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
We got a lot of things we want to cover,
but I'm going to start at the national level because
I don't know in the last time when you got
to Colorado, but I want to ask about the National
Guard being in DC and the fact that you work there,
lived there probably part of the time as well.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Are we seeing crime in DC? What are you seeing
with the National There's always been crime in d C.

Speaker 4 (00:44):
But I don't think there's anything remotely calling for the
President calling out our troops and putting them in the
streets in the nation's capital. I mean, is it's really
an appalling abuse of power.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
I think and owes that do you feel safe walking around?

Speaker 1 (01:03):
So do most people feel safer?

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Is it something that they wanted to see addressed in
one way, shape or form, And this may have been
just one of the ways.

Speaker 4 (01:10):
I think that everybody would like to feel safer all
across America. You know that's always true. But I don't
think people want the United States Defense Department in our cities.
And I certainly don't.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
You bring up something that's very interesting because it seems
like that the president has a certain amount of overreach.
But I also don't see Congress and people on your
side of the aisle pushing back that much against it.
Has Congress seated their power to the president and whether
or not, and this maybe has gone on even prior
to President Trump, but it's too much power now on
the executive brand.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
I think there is too much power in the executive branch.
And I agree with you, Marty. It's been for years
and years and years. You know, there's a We're getting
to the point where we pass basically two bills a year.
One one is the so called Reconciliation Bill, which is
a budget bill that a party can pass without bipartisan sport.
It's one of the very rare pieces of the legislation

(02:04):
that doesn't need sixty votes, and that's why it gets passed.
And the other is the Defense bill that's ridiculous. And
on the other hand, I think Donald Trump has taken
this level of sort of abuse to something that we've
never seen before in terms of making decisions that are
contrary to what the Congress has passed. I mean, we

(02:25):
now see him appropriating money that the Congress has stipulated
should be going to one place, and he's saying, I'm
going to put it somewhere else. That's not how the
constitution works. And you saw earlier this week there were
a bipartisan group of senators that's saying, we're going to
rewrite our legislation going forward to make it clear that
the president can't do that. We have introduced bipartisan tariff legislation.

(02:49):
I was the second Democrat. I actually joined with Mitch McConnell,
the former Republican leader, to say the president shouldn't be
able to impose these unilateral tariffs that have been had
such a terrible effect on Colorado's small businesses without Congress,
also saying, you know, that seems like something we should do.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
You've been traveling around our state speaking with some of
our residents. I assume tariffs has been one of the
topics that has been up for discussion.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
What have you been hearing from local restan on tariffs?

Speaker 4 (03:17):
What I've been hearing from small businesses is we finally
have recovered from COVID, We finally have dealt with the
broken supply chains that we had to deal with in COVID,
and now we have a man made, destroyed supply chain
all over again.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
I mean, it doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
I believe strongly that, you know, we should be pushing
back on China in many ways, and I actually agree
with the President in that respect. I don't think we
should be damaging Colorado's small businesses in our approach. What
I'm hearing in Colorado is what I hear I've been
hearing for a decade or more, which is, you know,
it's getting harder and harder for people to live here.

(03:53):
People are really worried that no matter what they do,
their kids are not going to be able to afford
to live in the count in which they lived. They're
not going to be able to afford to live in
the neighborhood they're going to live, and we've got to
fix that. You know that that's a terrible situation for
families to be.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
In your policy on tariffs, it hasn't changed or shift
it necessarily, has it? I mean what because our text
is always saying, well, President Biden and Democratic presidents have
had tariffs. I would say probably not to the same level.
But has your position on tariff's always been consistent?

Speaker 4 (04:22):
My position has always been consistent. I have said for
a long time, long before President Trump's second term, that
we should be pushing back on the state sponsored version
of capitalism that the China that the Beijing government has
pursued all these years. You know, for many years we
said this is just the nature of free trade, and
the American people paid a heavy price for that. Donald

(04:45):
Trump called the question on that, you know, and that's
something that I agreed with him the first time when
he ran, and I agree with him now. I don't
think the broader tariff policy makes any sense. It's completely
incoherent to be challenging our our allies in the way
that he has. What we'd be better off doing is
bringing our allies together the democracies around the world and

(05:08):
pushing back together against the unfair trade policies that China
is pursuing. And I've been completely consistent on that over
the years.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
We're speaking that Senator Michael Bennett. Lots of topics we
want to get to today. One that was in the
news yesterday was President Trump demanding the Colorado officials free
former Mason County Clerk Tina Peters from prison.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Your reaction and statement to that.

Speaker 4 (05:31):
I think that she was convicted and for good reason,
because she was trying to manipulate the election by letting
people into her office to look at her voting machines.
That's an outrage and everybody should be outraged by that.
But I'm not surprised that President Trump is trying to
troll everybody by saying that she's a freedom fighter and

(05:52):
should be released.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
The subject of bail in ballots, he's trying to attack
that as well with an executive order ahead of the midterms.
When you talk to the constituents here, and I also
say this specifically to people on the other side of
the aisle, opposite of where your politics are, how do
they feel about voting by mail.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Do they feel it safe? Do they do? They believe
there's a chance for.

Speaker 4 (06:10):
They love voting by mail. They love voting by mail.
Rural Colorado loves voting by mail. You know, it is
an amazing we have, Marty. We have the best voting
system in America. It is fraud free, it is not manipulated,
and it gives everybody in our state the chance to
be able to have the fullest access to the ballot

(06:31):
of anybody in America. And I don't think this president
would like to fight the farmers and ranchers in Colorado.
Many of them are Republicans who love their male ballot,
and I will fight to preserve it on behalf of
rural Republican Colorado as much as Democratic. You know, urban Colorado.
Everybody loves our mail ballot. Everybody loves the way we

(06:54):
run elections in for good reason. We do an amazing
job in the state.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Senator Bennett, you are running for Colorado's next governor. How
would you describe your relationship with President Trump if elected
as governor.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
I don't have much of a relationship with President Trump
right now, and my interest in being governor is because
I want to make sure we can address the affordability
crisis in Colorado. I want to make sure that our
kids and our grandkids know they're going to be able
to build a home in Colorado. Marty, to your point

(07:27):
about politics, you know, I've been saying to people, I
don't care whether you call yourself progressive or conservative. If
our kids can't live in this state, we have a
huge problem that we have to find a way to solve.
And you know, I'll deal with President Trump as we
go in the way that puts Colorado first and doesn't
continue to have our political system spiral out of control.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
My late father used to always talk about that he
felt Colorado was best when it had a mixture of politics.
He'd always say, when we have democratic senators, we had
a republic governor and vice versa. There was a real
good balance back in the days when Colorado was probably
more purple. You obviously know it shifted more blue. Do
you think the state is out of balance politically right now?

Speaker 1 (08:10):
I think, Marty.

Speaker 4 (08:11):
First of all, I think a lot of people agree
with your father, and I think in spirit that Colorado
really is a purple state. I have been very fortunate
in the time that I've been in the US Senate
to be on the Agriculture Committee from the very first
day I went there until today. It's the only committee
where I've been there the whole time, and that has

(08:32):
put me over and over and over again in living
rooms and on farms and ranches all over our state,
in counties where no matter what I do, and I
realize this, I'll never win more than twenty or thirty
percent of the vote because of our national politics. But
I think it's critically important for people that represent our
state at the state wide level for people to feel

(08:54):
like you're representing them, whether they voted for you or not.
And that is the approach that I've taked and in
the time that I've been in the US Senate, and
that's the approach I will take as governor of the
state of Colorado. I think it is really important for
us to stitch this state back together. I think Colorado
can provide a beacon. You know, we can be a

(09:15):
beacon for the rest of the country. We don't have
to go down the road of the broken politics in.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Washington, d C.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
And we've got some big decisions to make around tabor,
around education, around healthcare, around energy, and I think We're
going to be better if we.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Make those decisions together.

Speaker 4 (09:33):
I've said over and over again that my first, you know,
meetings on housing as governor are going to be on
the western slope of Colorado, not in Denver. My first
meetings on what are we going to do about tabor
are going to be on the western slope of Colorado,
not in Denver. As a way of sending a message
that I want the entire state in this discussion, in

(09:53):
this debate, I don't think we should be you know,
I don't think it's a preferred way for our political
system to work, for us to be about one party
rule and have it be my way or the highway.
That's the stuff we've seen in DC, and that permanent,
that permanent game of shirts and skins or whatever you
want to call it, is going to be a disaster

(10:16):
for our kids and for our grandkids.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Let's talk.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Let's talk special session real quick with the little time
we have left. You know, Democrats play, I mean President
Trump's one big, beautiful bill for the budget crisis that
we're seeing in our state. Republicans claiming that it's the
Democrats reckless spending. As governor, how would you see this
special session playing out to us.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
On this one. That's just madness.

Speaker 4 (10:36):
I mean, the reality is they had already cut a
billion dollars out of the state budget and there was
a surplus, you know, in the before the so called
Big Beautiful.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Bill was passed.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
Now they're back having to cut another billion dollars out
of the budget because of the changes that were made
in that bill. There has been no other intervening anything.
That's all that has happened. And the tragedy of this
is that Colorado had a surplus which it's now going
to have to use to help to deal with the
fact that Donald Trump's bill has affected our created a

(11:12):
deficit for Colorado. And it's particularly enraging because the people
that voted for that bill in Washington added three trillion
dollars to the nation's debt in doing that bill. You
look it up, it's true, and pick any newspaper and
read it. I'm sure even Fox News and admits that

(11:32):
it's a three trillion dollar deficit. So we have gone
from our surplus in Colorado that we've worked so hard
to protect to a deficit. It's been created by Donald
Trump and the Republicans who voted for his legislation and
now the unfortunately the governor and the legislature are going
to have to dig us out of that hole.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
If you were governor, and this is probably gonna be
our final question, two things, I guess One do you
think Colorado is heading in the right direction? And two
what would you do differently than the current leadership.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
Of I think Colorado is the greatest state and that
anybody ever invented. I mean, it is the greatest place
to live. Everybody is so proud to be part of
this state. But I think it has become unaffordable, and
we got to build some housing in the state to
reduce the cost of housing. We've got to figure out
how to make childcare more affordable for people. We've got

(12:22):
to figure out how to create an education system in
this state where kids are graduating from high school they
know they have the skills turn a living wage, not
just the minimum wage. We've got to deliver public services
in a way that is more efficient and consistent with
the way the world works in the twenty first century.

(12:43):
I think we've got to cut red tape in Colorado
to make it a better place to start and grow
a business.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
So there's a lot of work for us to do.

Speaker 4 (12:52):
I think, as I said earlier, I don't think there
is any other state in America that's better positioned than Colorado.
We are going to have to make some hard choices together,
but if we do, I think we can show the
nation what a what a democracy, a working democracy looks like.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Senator Michael Bennett, appreciate you. Appreciate you taking the time
and joining us in the studio.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
That's so much for having me
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