Larry Hogan

- An anti-Trump Republican running for Senate with a pitch to fix America's broken politics.

This week on "Firing Line."

- You know, I'm very concerned about the toxic and divisive politics, and it's why I'm running.

- As the Republican governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan finished his second term with sky-high approval ratings - You're one of the most popular governors in America.

You are a Republican in a blue state.

His bid to become Maryland's first Republican Senator in nearly 40 years is testing his bipartisan appeal in a deep blue state.

- I liked him as a governor.

I'm not anti Larry Hogan.

- Hogan's race against Democrat Angela Alsobrooks could decide control of the Senate.

- Larry Hogan, his BFF, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump's Republican party want to flip this seat.

- And the key to the Senate majority runs through Maryland.

- I welcome whatever it takes to get us into the majority.

I don't care if he's a vegetarian, it doesn't matter to me.

He has received, and rejected, Trump's endorsement.

- I think he has a good chance to win.

I would like to see him win.

- So there's no chance you'll vote for Trump?

- I'm not going to.

I didn't vote for him in 2016 or 2020, and I think I made that pretty clear.

- What does former Governor Larry Hogan say now?

- [Narrator] "Firing Line" with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, and by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. - Governor Larry Hogan, welcome back to "Firing Line."

- Thank you, Margaret, it's great to be back with you.

- When we spoke earlier last year, you had said that you wanted to contribute to the future of the Republican Party from outside elected politics.

Now, you're running to be the first Republican Senator from Maryland in nearly 40 years.

Why should Maryland Democrats who supported Senator Ben Cardin, whose seat you hope to fill, and Senator Chris Van Hollen vote for you?

- Well, that's what we're going to try to convince them of.

You know, I'm just going to try to convince the voters of Maryland that I'm going to be the same strong, independent voice that I've always been.

And, you know, that they voted for me twice.

I won a big, huge surprise upset victory in 2014. a lot of Democrats crossed over.

And in 2018, I became only the second Republican to be reelected in 248 years.

So this one is harder because we've got a presidential year with a drag at the top of the ticket.

I've got to overcome about a 30 point deficit.

It's never been done before.

But, you know, to your first point, I really had no desire to run for the United States Senate.

I always thought I was done with politics.

But I got into this because I'm so concerned about the direction of the country.

You know, I'm trying to put country over party and go do the right thing.

And I'm hoping that voters will do the same thing.

- Is the Senate the kind of body where one voice can make a difference?

- It's not always that way, but I think it is possible.

I mean, if you look just in recent history, you know, I get along very well with Joe Manchin, who's now leaving.

Joe stood up to the kind of far left of his party and made a difference, and he stood out.

John McCain is someone that I greatly admire.

And John McCain called me hours before he went down and gave the big thumbs down to protect the Affordable Care Act.

You know, sometimes one person can make a difference.

And I'm not going there to be, you know, one of 100 people and just arguing all day and getting nothing done.

I'm a guy who likes to get things done.

I'm only running because I think I can be the key voice in the middle to try to accomplish bipartisan common sense solutions.

- Will you buck the Republican Party majority?

- I think nobody has any doubts that I will stand up to, I've proven over and over again that I had the courage to stand up to the former president and to my party, you know, numerous times when I think they're wrong.

I'm going to work together, whoever is elected president, whoever's in the majority in the Congress.

I'm going to work with people when I think they're right, and I'm going to stand up to them when I think they're wrong.

And that's what I've done in my entire career.

- You've said that it was the Republicans tanking the bipartisan border bill at Trump's command that drove you to actually get into the race.

- It was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back.

You know, I hadn't been planning this.

- Right.

- But but I was getting frustrated, more and more frustrated with the politics, the divided, broken, toxic politics in Washington.

I was concerned about our party and where we were going.

You know, I helped get in the bipartisan infrastructure bill done.

It was my initiative at the National Governors.

I thought this was the next chance maybe we could get this bipartisan bill done.

And people who said they were for securing the border, supporting Israel and Ukraine and Taiwan, and were for the bill, they were told to vote against it and they all tanked the bill.

Which, it was sort of the final straw.

And I said to my wife, you know, "What do you think?

"I think I might run for the..." I never said I was going to run for the Senate.

And she said, "You know, it's probably better for us "if you don't run, but it's not just about us."

- How do you persuade Marylanders that electing you doesn't actually help this same Republican Party that tanked that bill?

- Yeah, I think that we desperately need leaders that are willing to stand up.

And we need them on both sides, but we certainly need them in the Republican Party.

I know my opponent is trying to make the case that, you know, I'll be the 51st vote for the MAGA agenda.

I've been the leading voice of opposition to the MAGA agenda for my entire time in politics since Donald Trump came down the escalator.

And I'm not going to be the 51st vote.

I mean, Democrats have to run the table in 10 straight states that are red states and purple states, and we're in a blue state in the country.

But I think I can be the one that stands out.

And I think I can be a valuable voice inside the caucus to keep them from doing crazy things, more so than a freshman Democrat in the minority.

- You've said that one of the reasons you're running, also, is that the Senate needs more pro-Israel voices.

Iran fired missiles into Israel this week after Israel took out Hezbollah's top leadership and then sent troops into Lebanon.

As the risk of a wider regional war increases, what should the Biden administration be doing?

- The world is a tinderbox right now, and we've got to be really careful what we do.

But one thing that we can't be unequivocal, and we've got to support our greatest ally, Israel, as they try to fight back and protect their right to exist, and the right to defend themselves.

And so I think sometimes we're getting mixed signals out of the Biden administration.

I do think it was great that they helped, you know, combat the 180 missiles that were just fired into Israel.

The Biden Administration, I give them credit for that.

But their messaging hasn't been that strong.

And the guy I'm hoping to replace, Ben Cardin, we didn't agree on everything.

He's in a different party.

But he was a champion for Israel, and I'll continue to be that same type of champion.

Our other junior senator, Chris Van Hollen, is the most anti-Israel member of the Senate.

And my opponent is very much in agreement with him for calling for demanding immediate cease fire, cutting off military aid to Israel.

We just strongly disagree.

- You have expressed concerns about the Biden administration trying to rein in the Netanyahu Government under pressure from the left.

Do you expect that a Harris administration would be better or worse for Israel than Donald Trump's return to the White House?

- You know, it's so hard to tell because the rhetoric from both sides doesn't always match their records.

But I think, you know, I don't always agree with Donald Trump, even on foreign policy.

A lot of things I don't agree with.

But he's a pretty strong supporter of Israel.

But some of the things he says, you just never know.

Harris was kind of catering to the far left of her party and now, her rhetoric has completely changed now that she's the nominee.

So I think it's really important whoever gets elected president, that we have leaders in the Senate to keep things...

I don't know what's going to happen in the House and I don't know what's going to happen in the White House, but we need grownups in the Senate that are willing to stand up and do the right thing.

- Donald Trump has said that Jews who vote for Democrats are fools, and said that if he loses, it would be the fault of the Jews, actually.

You're trying to win over Jewish Democrats in Maryland.

How do you respond to this kind of rhetoric from the Republican nominee for president?

- Well, I think it's outrageous rhetoric.

And I spoke out when I first heard it.

I mean, I think, you know, Donald Trump should focus on the issues and kind of stop with the divisive rhetoric, which he's- - Which he's never done.

- He's never done.

- I mean, he's really never done.

- But we are working very hard to win over Jewish Democrats in Maryland.

And I think we're going to win the Jewish vote in Maryland, even though most of them are Democrats, because we don't use that kind of rhetoric and we're very clear in our resolve.

- This week, a federal judge actually ruled that the University of Maryland must allow a pro-Palestinian student vigil, interfaith vigil, on October 7th, the one year anniversary of Hamas's attack against Israel.

You were one of the first leaders to speak out and call for the cancellation of this event.

Against the backdrop of rampant anti-Semitism across the country in the wake of October 7th, what do you say to students at the University of Maryland who are scared and don't feel safe as Jews?

- Well, I think it was an outrageous decision that the University of Maryland originally granted the permit for pro-Hamas demonstrators to celebrate the terrorism of October 7th and the horrific atrocities.

It was mislabeled as a vigil, like we were somehow honoring the folks that lost their lives.

But it wasn't.

It was just the opposite of that.

And it was going to make Jewish students feel unsafe.

So I was the first, I think, and one of the only ones to stand up.

And some of us speaking out, fortunately, made the University of Maryland reverse their decision and take away the permit.

But now, it's been overturned by the courts.

But this is happening across the country.

So I'm going to continue to speak out about this.

And hopefully, this is going to be a peaceful demonstration, but it's in very poor taste.

And it's outrageous and unacceptable.

- In a speech this week to the Jewish Institute for National Security in America, you said, "We desperately need leaders who are willing to stand up "and defend American leadership in the world."

- In the Senate, I will never hesitate to stand up to the isolationists in both parties.

- Who are some of those isolationists on the right?

- You know, this is unfortunately one of the few things we have bipartisan agreement on, and that's lack of resolve and being isolationist.

And there are Democrats and Republicans who think we should no longer be the leader of the free world, and we should no longer stand up for our allies or stand up to our enemies.

And so there's almost just as many people on both sides that feel that way.

- J.D.

Vance was one of the leaders in the Senate against funding Ukraine.

Is he one of those isolationists?

- You know, he and I disagree on an awful lot of issues, and particularly on Ukraine and our position in the world.

And, you know, but there are many, really, in both parties.

And I think we just need more people that are kind of, I'm traditional, I'm a Ronald Reagan, 'peace through strength' guy who wants to stand up.

And I want to protect America's leadership.

And there are people that are going to disagree.

That's why we so desperately need voices.

- But you don't want to call- - And my opponent is not going to be one of them.

- You don't want to call J.D.

Vance, the senator who's the vice presidential nominee.

- Well, I would say I'm he and I disagree very strongly on those issues.

But as you know, Margaret, I'm not one of those name-calling, divisive rhetoric kind of guys.

- You say we desperately need leaders who are willing to stand up and defend American leadership in the world.

Is Kamala Harris or Donald Trump the better leader?

- Well, I'm not sure that I'm pleased with either one of them and their policies and whether they are going to stand up.

I'm, quite frankly, disappointed that these are the two choices that we have in this election.

And I'm not sure either one of them is that kind of leader.

- Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz and Senator, J.D.

Vance, debated this week in New York, the Vice Presidential Debate.

Senator Vance refused to admit that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.

He whitewashed Trump's behavior on January 6th and even praised Trump for 'peacefully' handing over power.

As governor, you sent Maryland National Guard troops to secure the Capitol on January 6th.

What do you make of the fact that the Republican vice presidential nominee is so dishonest about what happened?

- Well, it's the opposite of what he said before.

He just totally changed his position, probably because he's the vice presidential candidate.

But look, I made it, I was, I think, the first Republican elected leader to congratulate Joe Biden on his victory and to call on Donald Trump to concede.

I think I sent a Tweet saying, "Stop golfing and concede," which he didn't respond very well to.

But I also, on January 6th, which was a terrible assault on our democracy, I was the very first.

We sent the Maryland State Police and the Maryland National Guard to protect the Capitol.

We were the first ones to come in from outside of Washington as my friend Mike Pence was being threatened, and they were chants of, "Hang Mike Pence," and the leaders of Congress were desperately calling me as the next-door governor to come protect the Capitol of the United States.

So anybody that wants to whitewash, or still wants to litigate the stolen election, or wants to whitewash January 6th as tourists and nothing really bad happened, is completely wrong.

- One thing that stood out about the Vice Presidential Debate is that it was actually remarkably substantive, policy-oriented, and pretty respectful.

- Yes.

- You know, the difference, of course, is that Donald Trump wasn't on the stage.

And I wonder how much of the vitriol and the divisive rhetoric in our politics today is actually directly tied to Donald Trump, and whether that yields perhaps a green shoot for a time after Trump in our politics, that we might return to some kind of, sort of respectful norm.

- Well, I sure hope so.

But it really didn't just all start with Donald Trump.

I remember in my inaugural address in 2015, I said that the politics that have divided our nation need not divide our state.

There was already pretty angry vitriol a couple of years before Trump came down the escalator.

- But it was such a contrast between the Presidential Debate versus the Vice Presidential Debate.

- I was impressed, one, that they had a substantive debate of the issues, and, two, that it was a relatively civil discussion.

I was pleased that, you know, it was not the same kind of rhetoric.

And certainly, people saw a whole other side of J.D.

Vance.

He was very, I thought, civil to Tim Walz.

And they were both kind of friendly with one another, but they disagreed strongly on issues, which that's the way a debate should be.

- Yeah, does it give you hope that our politics can return in a post-Trump era?

- It's the only reason I'm running.

Because I really believe that we've got to stop the divisive, angry, toxic politics and the rhetoric that's tearing the country apart.

And I think that I can be a voice for helping us get back on track.

You know, successful politics is about addition and multiplication.

It's not about subtraction and division.

That's why we've been losing a lot of elections lately.

- You've been clear about the danger that Trump poses.

You've also been clear, you're not going to vote for Kamala Harris.

There are Republicans, like Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and more than 100 former Republican National Security Officials who will not vote for Donald Trump, some of whom even worked for him, Vice President Mike Pence.

Do you believe a Harris presidency would at least be slightly better than a Trump presidency?

- Yeah, I'm just one of those frustrated majority.

I think there are close to 40% of the people in America that really wish we had a better choice for president, because, you know, I don't agree with Kamala Harris on a lot of policy issues.

And I don't agree with Donald Trump on the character issues and the way he carries himself.

And so, but it's very telling that that many Republicans and that many members of the administration are not going to vote for Donald Trump, which is my same position.

- With the exception of former Vice President Mike Pence, all of them are going to vote for Kamala Harris.

They think character is more important than policy.

What's more important to you?

- I think character and policy are both pretty darn important.

And but, you know, in my state, Kamala Harris is going to be the nominee.

She's winning by 30 points.

And my vote, I'm going to probably cast a protest vote that- - You're going to write in your dad again?

- I'm not sure what I'm going to...

I might write in Margaret Hoover, I'm not sure.

- Please don't.

(Margaret laughs) Seriously though, if you were in Pennsylvania or a swing state where it mattered, would you feel sort of morally obligated to actually make a more difficult choice?

- It's a very difficult choice for, not just for me, but for nearly everyone.

It's not, you know, look, you know, the vice president, up until recently, was the least popular vice president in American history and was far less popular than Joe Biden.

And I think it's an amazing turnaround that she's changed positions and changed her campaign and enthusiasm.

And, you know, I'm not a supporter of Donald Trump, but I think it's just not a great choice for people to make.

And I think the people of America are- - But some people have to make that choice.

People in seven states are going to have to make that choice.

- Yes, that's very true.

- But if you were in one of those states?

- Well, I don't like to deal in speculation.

I'm not moving out of Maryland.

- That's true.

Even though you say you would have convicted him, you would have voted to convict Donald Trump.

- Well, I thought that I was very concerned about a lot of the issues.

And, obviously, I probably stood up more than anybody in America on January 6th.

- I understand, Governor, that you don't want to say what you would do, so I'm going to move on.

- We've talked about how your race for the Senate is one of the key Senate races in the country.

The argument Democrats make in Maryland is that even though you were a bipartisan governor, even though you built broad coalitions, and Democrats voted for you in your reelection, and record numbers of African-American voters and women voters and Hispanic voters were all part of your winning coalition as governor, the argument is that you would be putting MAGA Republicans in charge of the Senate if they send you to the Senate.

How do you respond?

- Well, that's kind of the main attack from my opponent in the campaign and a lot of people are repeating it.

But I'm convincing an awful lot of people.

I mean, right now, more than a quarter of all Democrats are voting for me and they're splitting their ticket between Harris and Hogan.

And we've got to convince a few more, because in my past two elections, I got more than a third of the Democrats.

And my answer is, I'm never going to be part of supporting the MAGA agenda.

I'm also not going to be the deciding vote.

I think the Senate is going to be in Republican hands and I'm going to be the most reasonable, most centrist, most common sense guy and the most bipartisan one.

And Democrats, I need to convince some more that I'm just going to be the exact same, you know, bipartisan independent leader that they've always known.

And I'm not going to change.

- You once called Trump's Supreme Court picks incredible, but you've criticized many of their decisions, including the Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

How would you handle his judicial nominees?

- I think one of the things that is the most important to not be politicized and not be partisan is judicial nominations.

Unfortunately, that's not what's happening, frankly, on either side.

And that's why it keeps going back and forth, and we keep having all this, you know, fighting about the Supreme Court.

I have more probably experience with this than any member of the Senate.

I appointed 190 judges, including six out of the seven members of our Supreme Court.

And every single one of them was unanimously confirmed by a 70% Democratic legislature and all the Republicans.

And in Washington, they can't even get one vote.

So I really think it's important for us to nominate qualified nominees that will respect the letter of the law and will make decisions and have the right judicial temperament.

And whether Kamala Harris is the president or Donald Trump is the president, I'll vote for any nominees that I think fit those criteria.

If Kamala Harris appoints a judge that I think is qualified, I'm going to vote for that person.

And if Donald Trump appoints someone I don't think is qualified, I'm going to vote against them.

But I'm going to give everybody, you know, a hearing and, you know, take a look at the facts.

- You have a plan to co-sponsor a bill that would codify Roe v. Wade.

- Yes.

- And the Democrats running against you say that your support for abortion rights would be meaningless if the GOP controlled the Senate.

- Well, my opponent's entire campaign is based on lies.

So I've been against the national abortion ban since 1992.

And when I announced, their very first comment was I was going to outlaw abortion.

When I ran for governor, I promised to protect access to abortion.

And I kept that promise for eight years.

I'm going to co-sponsor a bill to codify Roe along with Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.

There are Republicans already voting that way.

- How do you get to 60?

- Right now, no one could get to 60 either way on almost anything.

But that's what we have to do.

We have to try to get down there and win some votes and find some bipartisanship.

- So then the Democrats say we have to overturn the filibuster.

- Well, I don't think we should.

I think the last thing we need is more partisanship and jamming things through on a partisan vote, because they've got to be careful what they wish for.

They jam through something on a 51st vote, the next time, the Republicans are going to jam things through.

And what we really need are people coming together and working in a bipartisan way.

The kind of deliberative body of the Senate, and the filibuster, is what keeps us from going off the rails and keeps us from the pendulum swinging back, you know, every two years or four years.

- In 1973, William F. Buckley Jr. hosted a discussion on impeachment and the question of how to hold a president accountable.

Take a look at this clip from 1973.

- There's no sense in trying to treat the president like everybody else because he's not like everybody else.

The evolution of our institutions are such as to have fused the office of chief of state and the office of chief of government.

The impeachment instrument, in my opinion, ought to be used not to punish a president, but to remove him.

If you think that the safety of the state requires that the president be removed, then you invoke it, but you don't invoke it for high crimes and misdemeanors without recognizing that the principal casualty is ourselves rather than the president.

- This debate about impeachment and removal from office coincided with a time where your father was the first Republican to stand up to Richard Nixon in the House of Representatives and say that he should resign from office because of the Watergate scandal.

My question actually to you is about how Donald Trump faced impeachment twice and was not removed from office.

And so removal from office really isn't a credible threat in the way that we used to think of it, in the way that Buckley referenced there.

The Supreme Court has now granted presidents broad immunity to exercise their official powers.

And a second Trump term, since Trump wouldn't have to worry about winning reelection, my question to you is, how do we hold him accountable?

- Well, I think, I agree with Buckley in that things have changed an awful lot since '73 and that we used to have leaders that would actually judge things based on the facts and make decisions.

And you've referenced it.

And my dad was the one who I've learned a lot about integrity in public service from my dad, who was the very first...

He was a Nixon supporter, but when he saw all of the evidence, he became the first Republican to come out for Nixon's impeachment.

Nixon resigned 11 days later.

They were going to remove him from office.

And the senators, Republican senators, went to the White House to tell him that.

Now, it's, like, they use it as a weapon, as he said, it's just, like, back and forth where, you know, "We're going to impeach you."

"We're going to impeach you."

"We're going to impeach you back."

And now, it's lost a lot of its teeth.

But I just think no man is above the law, not even the president of the United States.

So that's what my dad said in 1974 and it's what I still believe.

But I think what happened was we didn't have folks on either side taking it seriously.

We had the House being overly partisan and pushing.

And then we had Republicans not willing to look at the facts.

We've got to get back to the time where we have leaders that are actually going to make decisions based on the rule of law, and otherwise we don't really have much to stand on.

- Is it striking to you that of the people who have stood up to Donald Trump, they're often legacy Republicans?

Your father stood up to Richard Nixon.

Mitt Romney is from a political legacy family.

Liz Cheney is from a political legacy family.

Bill Kristol is from a legacy political family.

- I never thought of that before, Margaret.

But I think, look, I was instilled at an early age about, you know, putting country over party and putting people over politics and that no man was above the law, not even the president of the United States.

And I think maybe some of those other folks got exposed to politics early on and maybe had some similar kinds of experiences.

But I think the politics today is broken.

And it's nothing, but divisiveness and dysfunction.

It's nothing, but name calling and finger pointing.

And we have to get back to, you know, it's all about red versus blue, and I care more about the red, white and blue.

And I think that's what we've got to really be focused on, particularly at this dangerous time.

- If Trump loses in November, what does the future of the Republican Party look like in two years, in four years, in six years?

Do you think that his power will wean after having lost so many elections?

- Well, I gave a speech at the Reagan Library two years ago saying we got to, you know, we've got to stop losing elections and we got to move on.

And, obviously, I wasn't that convincing.

But I think I'm still in the fight.

I haven't given up.

You know, people say, "Why are you still a Republican?

"Why aren't you an independent?

"Why do you continue to try?

"Why don't you just give up?"

But I think it's too important to.

And I want to, I'm hoping if Donald Trump is not elected president, that we're going to have to reexamine, and other people are going to have to start thinking the way I've been thinking.

And I'm hoping I can be a voice of reason and sanity that will help us get the Republican Party back on track to a more traditional Republican Party that appeals to more voters, that has a hopeful, positive vision for America.

And, you know, I think that's critically important that we have a healthy and competitive two party system.

- Larry Hogan, for sharing your views and for joining me on "Fire Line," yet again, thank you for joining me.

- Thank you, Margaret.

- [Narrator] "Firing Line" with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation and by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. (gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music continues) - [Voiceover] You're watching PBS.