John Kasich and John Hickenlooper on Civility in Politics

AMANPOUR AND COMPANY: How do you provide an example to those people in the building behind you?

KASICH: I don’t know if they’re really paying attention. You know, in the big days when people could actually get along, and you remember, Christiane, I was one of the negotiators with Pete Domenici to get the Federal budget balance. I mean, it was pretty simple to do. I mean, it was a hard road but we got it done.

Being a governor now, you know, you have problems to solve. See, John and I don’t operate in a zero-sum game here like if I get something he gets nothing. I mean, we both benefit from the cooperation. Although, I don’t think we even think of it that way in terms of what’s the benefit. It’s just natural that he and I can figure out what are reasonable solutions to the challenging problems for our country. Do I think these other folks — I mean, we could do our job. Do I think they’re like sitting there watching? No, I don’t. I think they kind of think they have it all figured out. But the zero-sum game mentality, whether it is in sports, whether it’s in politics, whether it’s in religion, whether it’s in business never serves anybody well. And so, the idea is, everybody has to gain a little bit of something when they work together.

AMANPOUR: Right.

KASICH: That’s why we work together and have better progress.

AMANPOUR: Right. But exactly, you raise this issue whereby the opposition is now the enemy not just somebody you disagree with on policy. So, Governor Hickenlooper, you mentioned and we’ve mentioned that it is health care that has brought you, at first, together. President Trump published and op-ed in USA today this week.

Basically, he said that Democrats, your party, would gut Medicare with their “Medicare for all proposal.” Now, this has been debunked by fact checkers and, you know, USA TODAY’s been even criticized for running this op-ed. But what is your reaction to it and how does an op-ed on this sort of very touchstone issue by the president affect American’s understanding of even what’s at stake?

HICKENLOOPER: Well, I think President Trump has — I mean, he is not constrained by facts or telling the truth and I think that is a problem and it creates a lot of confusion in terms of what the American people think, certainly what they hear but also, I think it confuses them what they think. The bottom line is, that governors are aware of the buck stops, right. The Federal government may make these national policies but we’re the ones who have to implement it, we have to make sure that we’re taking their rules and regulations and trying to apply them as best we can.

And the key here is both John and I feel, I think strongly, that we didn’t want to go backwards. We — you can fight over whether you want a single pair system or Medicare for all, you can fight over whether you — you know, any of those different types of getting there, but we all want to have more people covered. I think that’s almost universal. Maybe not completely universal but almost universal.