Politics

Andy Beshear on how Dems can hammer Trump over tariffs

Published

1 year ago

April 8, 2025

For months, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear warned that the Trump administration’s imposition of tariffs stands to harm his state’s economy, including its bourbon, auto and aerospace industries. Now that Trump is ratcheting them up, the Democratic governor said the impacts will be “devastating” not just for the Bluegrass state, but for the entire country.

In an interview with Blue Light News on Monday, Beshear, a potential 2028 presidential contender, said there isn’t much Democratic governors can do when it comes to international trade, even as another potential presidential candidate, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, pressed trading partners to spare California-made products from retaliatory measures.

Instead, Beshear argued Democrats’ best recourse is to wage a public information campaign against Trump’s trade agenda, highlighting how the president was elected on a promise to lower costs but instead may make life more expensive for Americans. Democrats need to hammer the point that “he and he alone is making this decision, and he’s out there owning it,” Beshear said.

That recommendation comes as Beshear works to raise his own national profile, with frequent appearances on cable news and a podcast launching on Tuesday.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

About a month ago, you said that you were in touch with Canadian officials urging them to pull back on their tariffs on liquor, mainly to protect Kentucky bourbon. What’s the latest in those conversations?

Well, as a governor, you can have general conversations with leaders in other countries, but you can’t engage in any type of tariff talks. Tariffs are entirely federal, meaning the impact that’s happening on my state, the impact that’s happening on the US economy, is due to one person and one person alone, and that’s Donald Trump. The people in my state who voted for him didn’t vote to have the prices of everything that they need go up. Most of them voted thinking that he’d help bring prices down …

I think the law is very clear that tariffs are federal policy, but I also think that that just makes it that much clearer that there’s no way around the pain that Donald Trump is causing. When he engages in these actions that harm Americans, so many in the media or others say, ‘Well, what are you going to do to make sure it doesn’t harm the people of the United States.’

When the president makes a mistake this significant, when he does something that every single economist says will raise prices, that president typically has the authority to do it, but he should also take the blame for it.

Tell us more about your own trade vision. Kentucky is one of those states that has had communities gutted over the past few decades. Do you support Trump’s long term goal, which is to revitalize those lost industries?

Well, Kentucky is booming. We’ve had three of our best five years for economic development … We have brought in a record over the last five years for private sector investment, created a record number of new jobs, have the best three year average for wages, broke our export record twice, and it looks like we’ll break our tourism record three years in a row. So our economy was growing … What we are seeing is a lot of that momentum directly impacted by President Trump’s very different approach.

Look at Kentucky’s economy: Our biggest foreign direct investor is Japan, and the president has launched a very aggressive tariff on Japan. I mean, the biggest Toyota plant in the world anywhere is in Georgetown, Kentucky, and so to act like our economy isn’t global and there aren’t repercussions on the ground, that there aren’t manufacturing jobs that are already supported by foreign direct investors, that’s just not reality.

Trade is a lot more complicated than this president is acting like it is. Tariffs used surgically can be really important. China is trying to dump steel on the United States, so a targeted steel tariff makes sense. China is trying to dump completed EVs on markets throughout Europe. In the United States, targeted tariffs make sense there … But these across-the-board tariffs, again, I think every economist says are unwise and are not going to lead to the type of investments that the president is talking about.

Regarding the auto tariffs, what impact are you expecting to see on the Toyota manufacturing plant in Georgetown, and will it help or hurt? Because, presumably, it will increase production there.

Here’s the thing, if we want more parts made in the United States, that takes years of investment. I mean, a major manufacturing facility will take anywhere from two to five or six years to build. So if the idea is we will have a very aggressive tariff that will try to force that investment, well, that’s two to five years of pain on the consumer. There are different ways to encourage U.S. investment.

I believe that Donald Trump is only president because he convinced the last group of movable voters that he was focused on prices and the economy and that his opponent was distracted by other issues. Now he’s telling those same consumers he doesn’t care about them. He’s willing to let them go through pain, and his billionaire buddies are saying the same.

Your home-state senators are among the few in the GOP so far speaking out against the tariffs. With the stock market falling and Trump doubling down today on tariffs against China, do you predict this will become the breaking point for Republican support of Trump?

It should be the breaking point because it’s impacting all American families, Democrat, Republican, independent. Prices are going up and life is getting harder for American families solely because of this decision by the president. And like you said, when this Democratic governor and two Republican U.S. senators all say something is a bad idea, in this hyper partisan world, it’s because it is a bad idea.

What leverage do Democratic governors have on this front? I know you said earlier, there are federal laws limiting backchanneling, but what options are on the table for them to push back in any meaningful way?

It’s important for all of us to speak up and speak out. We are very close to our constituents. We are out in our communities every day, talking with the folks that live in our states. At the end of the day, it’s going to need to be more than just our voices. It’s going to need to be everybody who goes to the supermarket that sees their grocery tab going up, you know, X percent needs to take a picture or video of it, needs to post it and call it the Trump tax.

That couple that’s trying to buy a home for the first time where they were going to be able to afford it, and now it’s going up significantly, and they’re not going to be able to get that first house needs to tell their story. When somebody’s passing a gas station, which is on every corner with the prices going up, that needs to get out there too. What it’s going to take is the voice and the pressure of the people of the United States. And I think we see that’s growing.

Politics

Senators bullish on chances for a July vote on college sports bill

Published

2 hours ago

July 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senators bullish on chances for a July vote on college sports bill

But others familiar with the state of negotiations say the legislation doesn’t yet have support…
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Politics

Troy Jackson jumps out to big lead in race to replace Graham Platner in Maine

Published

2 hours ago

July 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

WISCASSET, Maine — As Maine Democrats began the rushed and convoluted process to name a successor to scandal-plagued former nominee Graham Platner, it became quickly clear that progressive Troy Jackson was in control.

From meetings in rural Calais near the Canadian border to urban, progressive Portland, in high school gyms and over Zoom calls across eight counties, the blue-collar logger former state Senate president ran up the score on Saturday.

His campaign dominated the first of two days of the delegate-selection process, with his longtime union allies flexing their organizing muscles to out-maneuver his rivals en route to capturing a strong majority of delegates.

“I’m asking for your vote, but I’m also asking for more than that,” Jackson told over 100 supporters at a Friday evening rally under a gazebo at a park overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Portland, Maine.

“I’m asking you to organize,” he continued. “I’m asking you to talk to your neighbors. I’m asking you to show up at your county meetings, make the calls, send the texts and bring even more people into this movement.”

Organize they did.

On Saturday, Maine Democrats in eight counties chose 319 of the 500 open delegate slots. Jackson-aligned candidates carried an overwhelming majority of the spots selected, while supporters of former state Center for Disease Control director Nirav Shah and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ backers made up just a handful apiece, according to a Blue Light News analysis of the campaigns’ released slates and the lists of elected delegates.

Jackson’s performance was so dominant on Saturday — capped off by a clean-sweep of the state’s largest county — that he announced he would host a celebratory tailgate during Sunday’s delegate selection caucus in York County.

The victor of Democrats’ flash pseudo-primary will be thrust immediately into the national spotlight in arguably the most important offensive opportunity for Senate Democrats this fall. Collins is the only Republican running for reelection in a state that President Donald Trump lost in 2024.

Speaking to a small group of reporters in Augusta on Saturday afternoon, Jackson acknowledged the stakes and the challenge.

“It’s probably the biggest race in the whole country,” Jackson said. “And Senator Collins is a whole different type of person to run against.”

Jackson’s campaign showed up to the county conventions with organized groups of volunteers, many of them sporting “Jackson for Maine” t-shirts from his recent unsuccessful run for governor. They also carried flyers with clear delegate slates after making a deluge of calls across the state to recruit supporters and make sure their backers were in place to push him at next week’s convention.

A logger from far-northern Allagash, Jackson made his rise in Maine politics through organized labor and has long been an ally of progressives, receiving Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) backing in the gubernatorial race. He campaigned arm-in-arm with Platner during the original primary. But Jackson swiftly called for him to exit the race after Blue Light News reported that a person who dated Platner said he sexually assaulted her. Platner denied the accusation, but dropped out four days later.

Jackson has been able to quickly establish himself as the candidate most in the mold of the oysterman, who dominated the Senate primary, given his longtime track record of backing similar policies.

Saturday’s strong organizational effort by Jackson and his allies — which came just eight days after Platner dropped his campaign, augmented by volunteers from more than a dozen unions that are endorsing Jackson — represents an impressive accomplishment under a tight timeline.

And it has set him up as the clear favorite over a crowded field of more than 10 candidates heading into the second day of county conventions. His nearest rivals, fellow former gubernatorial nominees Shah and Bellows, came out of Saturday’s slate of conventions with hardly any path to victory. Eight more counties will select 181 more combined delegates on Sunday, with another 101 Democratic state committee members already chosen and whose votes are less clear since they are not being elected as part of any slate. Together they will all make up the 601 delegates who will pick their party’s nominee next weekend in the crucial Senate race.

Some of Jackson’s supporters didn’t come in committed to a candidate, but had been swayed by his team’s hyper-local level of retail politics, which will be crucial in the battle with Collins, one of the strongest retail politicians in Congress.

Liam Kent, a Jackson supporter who was elected as delegate on Jackson’s slate in Lincoln County, said he had been undecided when he applied to run as a delegate. But he threw his support behind Jackson.

“I was in the middle of making a sandwich for lunch, and I was shocked to have him call me,” Kent said. “It was really nice because he’s as real on the phone as he is in person.”

The makeshift slate of county caucuses had its challenges. Voters, delegate nominees and campaigns encountered some minor hiccups while participating in the process, which was created by state and local Democrats in the two weeks after Platner’s exit from the race.

In-person and virtual county meetings provided staff to help voters resolve issues with the state’s online ballots, while campaigns scrambled to adapt to the quirks of the process.

Some delegate nominees were listed on the slates for multiple campaigns, although Jackson’s campaign featured less overlap than others. Bellows’ delegate slate included enough nominees in each county to account for the alternates that voters are allowed to select in each state. Shah’s and Jackson’s campaigns did not, causing confusion among Shah and Jackson supporters in Hancock County over where to assign their additional votes.

Nina Milliken, a state representative who coordinated Jackson’s delegate slate in Hancock County, was listed as a Shah delegate when his campaign initially released their slate. Shah’s campaign later removed her.

“It is nonsensical to me, frankly, that I’m on Shah’s list,” Milliken said. “This has been a profoundly messy process.”

The big delegate prize on Saturday was in Cumberland County, which includes the state’s largest and most Democrat-dense city of Portland. Jackson-aligned candidates claimed a clean sweep of the nominating spots in an online process that saw such high interest the party needed to extend the voting times. The final alternate delegate was a tied vote, so the county chair drew names out of a baseball cap to decide the winner.

While Jackson has a clear lead heading into Sunday, the delegates who are chosen — even if they are aligned with a particular candidate — are not formally pledged and can still change their votes at next week’s convention.

Even as he was able to rally his supporters, there were some voters who were dissatisfied with the process the Maine Democratic Party set up during the extremely narrow window they had to work with, with some who had hoped to serve as delegates feeling they were cut out of the process by campaigns that had coordinated delegate slates in advance. Other voters said the party did the best under the timeline that is outlined in state law.

Richard Zandler, a 75-year-old Democrat from Southwest Harbor, Maine, ran as an uncommitted delegate on Saturday but lost. He expressed dismay that his independence weakened his chances of being elected.

“I think a lot of the slates were established by looking at donors and people who had worked on the campaigns, because all of these candidates have just freshly come off a primary campaign,” he said.

Zandler is at least somewhat correct. A person running for delegate to back Shah said the campaign had contacted him to participate because he had previously donated to Shah’s gubernatorial race.

Other delegate-hopefuls bemoaned the sheer number of phone calls they had gotten from the want-to-be senators. Roughly 3,700 Mainers signed up to try to be delegates, and a number said they’d received 20 or 30 calls and texts from the various campaigns. Shah told Blue Light News he’d personally made about 500 calls to delegate nominees ahead of the weekend meetings.

Jackon’s closest rivals were not deterred by early results on Saturday. Shah told Blue Light News during a brief interview at Wiscasset Middle High School, before the scope of Jackson’s dominance had become clear, that his campaign would “keep their feet on the gas.”

“No one here is committed, and so there’s going to be a lot of persuasion that happens, without a doubt,” Shah said. “We’re going to continue.”

As the day wrapped up, Jackson posted a video to social media thanking his supporters.“All of you just smoked it,” he said. “Thank you so much. We’re well on our way to get the government we fucking deserve.”