- [Announcer] PBS Utah presents the "Governor's Monthly News Conference," an exchange between Utah reporters and Governor Spencer Cox.

(upbeat music) - Good morning, everyone.

It's great to see all of you again.

Thank you for joining us.

It's been a little while since we've been together, and we've been looking forward to the opportunity to spend some time and answer some questions.

This is a great time of year for everyone, I hope.

I hope you're enjoying this time of year.

I'd just like to start just sharing a little bit of something remarkable that happened last week.

I know it was covered by all of our media organizations, but a group of Utahans led by Lieutenant Governor Henderson traveled to Washington, DC, to unveil a very important statue: the statue of Martha Hughes Cannon in the US Capitol.

Martha Hughes Cannon holds a remarkable place, not just in Utah history, but in US history, as the first woman in the United States elected to a state Senate in 1896, defeating her own husband for that seat.

This statue truly represents Utah's historic role in championing political rights for women, something that is often overlooked.

Martha Hughes Cannnon's story highlights Utah's leadership in securing rights long before most women in the US could even vote.

Now, she wasn't just a pioneer in politics.

She was also a physician, a midwife, and an advocate for maternal health.

She saved countless lives and empowered women all across our state.

Her legacy truly embodies the best of Utah and our enduring values of leadership, equality, and service to others, inspiring so many to continue the great work that she started.

And I would note for those of you that get a chance to go back and visit the US Capitol, I hope you'll take an opportunity.

You go through the Visitor Center as you're entering there, which is where her statue has been placed, which is a fantastic location for everyone, not just Utahans, to get a chance to see her.

But she's also located right next to Johnny Cash.

And so anybody that wants to go see the Johnny Cash statue will get a chance to see her.

It's a great pairing, and we're so excited.

It's been a long time coming.

This was something that was started, gosh, seven, eight years ago.

It's taken a long time to actually get it done.

We were ready and then COVID hit, and it's taken longer to get it scheduled.

I just wanna thank all the Utahans who went back for that unveiling, those who spoke.

It was great to have our congressional delegation.

Senator Lee spoke.

The speaker of the US House spoke as well.

Congresswoman Maloy, Lieutenant Governor Henderson, and so many dignitaries from across the state who were there.

I would also note that this was celebrated not just here, but overseas.

She was a pioneer as a young girl who came from Wales in the UK, and crossed the planes with the pioneers to settle here in Utah.

So in Wales, on that same day, a plaque in her honor in her hometown was unveiled.

And there was a special ceremony at the ambassador's residence in DC with our people here in Utah.

So a celebration across the ocean as well.

And we're just so fortunate to have that kind of example here.

And with that, I'm ready to take questions.

- Governor, in the event of a potential federal government shutdown, are you likely to push for state funding to keep national parks open, as Utah has done in the past?

- Sure.

Yeah.

I just have to say, this one has come as a little bit of a surprise.

Everyone that we talked to in DC, it was just a formality.

We thought that there there would be a deal, and it still is very possible that a deal will get done, where we remain hopeful and optimistic that something will be done and we won't be shutting down.

But in the event that we do have a shutdown, sadly, (laughs) we've had these contingencies in place for a long, long time, since government shutdowns have become routine, or near routine.

The potential of shutdowns have certainly become routine.

We just go back and dust off what we did last time, and we'll be ready to move forward.

- So that includes national parks.

What else would likely be funded by the state?

- Well, you know, for sure the national parks.

Those are the big ones.

We'll look at other issues.

We did this last time.

We have a list of things that we'll go through in the event that a shutdown does happen.

And we need to talk to our congressional delegation about this.

I was actually on the phone with them yesterday talking about energy policy.

We had the entire delegation together, which was remarkable.

But as they were together, this was all falling apart.

And so we just had some brief conversations about it.

But we'll get more of an update later today and tomorrow to see where things are and what it looks like, and if there is a shutdown, how long that could be.

All of that kind of inside information will help us determine what we attempt to fund and what we're able to do.

- Governor, you made a statement on social media that you would be helping the Trump administration with mass deportations.

You said that you would be helping deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

Can you expound on that, since the Latino community is very worried about it?

- Sure.

Well, actually, it's the Latino community that's been asking for this, and I think that's what's remarkable.

We saw a big change this election, where so many in the Latino community are worried about the impact that open borders under the Biden administration have had.

And we're getting a tremendous amount of support from the Latino community to get those who are committing crimes and deport them back to their country of origin.

And I have to say, it's not just the Latino community.

In fact, when you look at the open borders over the past four years, there are people, dangerous elements who have come from the Middle East, dangerous elements who have come from China.

And so this isn't just about the Latino community.

It is about law and order.

And a country with open borders that can't deport even those who are committing crimes, then we're not much of a country at all.

And so this is not a Republican talking point.

My friends on the left are saying the exact same things.

It's been remarkable, in fact, to see the transition that has happened in the Democratic Party, to hear governors in blue states saying the same things we've been saying for a long time.

And so, look, we don't have details yet on what that will look like.

We're very anxious to get Governor Noem appointed and confirmed so that we can start down this path.

This is something we've been wanting to do for years.

We just haven't had an administration or an ICE leadership that has been willing to do the hard work that needs to be done.

- So what does it look like, then, for the average migrant family or something like that?

What does this look like?

- It looks like if you commit a crime, we send you out, which actually happened often under the Obama administration.

- Like, what do you mean by crime?

Because a lot of people in the comments were saying, like, being undocumented is already a crime.

So can you expand on that?

- Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

Look, we're going to start with criminals, people who are breaking the law and causing harm to Utahans and to Americans.

That's where we have to start.

Let's get the worst element out out of here.

Let's focus there.

That's something we haven't been able to do.

And the backlog is ridiculous.

It's embarrassing.

And again, I can't believe that this administration allowed that to happen.

I point out there were more deportations under the Obama administration than under the George W. Bush administration.

And at least a realization that you can't function as a country.

So there are two things that happened.

Again, open borders, no response to the border, which allowed, and historic, by every number, number of people to come across undocumented, and a number of criminals to come across undocumented.

And we are all paying the price for that, as we're trying to root out that crime now and get those people out of our country.

And so we have to do these two things.

We have to secure the border.

That's first and foremost and, again, now something that there is bipartisan consensus on.

And President Trump will do that.

And we will help to do that in any way we can.

And now we start deporting those criminals.

That's where this starts.

- But is being undocumented a crime for people?

- It is a crime.

Sure.

It is a crime.

- So that anybody who's undocumented will be deported.

- Yeah.

But that's not where our focus is.

Our focus right now is on those who are committing other crimes.

- Governor, you said that you're gonna start with criminals who pose a threat to the community.

Who's next?

Would it be undocumented people who have committed nonviolent crimes?

- Yes.

Yeah.

If you commit crimes, yes.

Yeah, yeah.

If you commit crimes, I don't care if they're violent or nonviolent, yes, you should not be here.

You shouldn't have been here in the first place, but you definitely should not be here.

- Trump did say he was gonna use the National Guard to carry out these mass deportations.

What do you think about that?

Are you gonna follow up with that?

- Yeah, so look, in Utah, DPS will be handling this.

That's who's traditionally handled this.

We've used the National Guard to help with lots of different things.

You know, transportation has been an issue with ICE.

This is one of the fights we've been having with ICE for years.

Is we have these criminals, we have them in our jails, and they won't do anything to take them, as they're supposed to, under the Constitution, under the laws of the United States.

ICE is supposed to do this.

And they say they can't do it, they don't have enough beds, they don't have enough funding, they don't have enough transportation.

And so we'll do whatever we can to help to expedite this thing that should have been happening for years and isn't happening.

Look, I wanna be very clear about this.

We care about those who are here, those who have come here legally.

It's really important that we fix legal immigration.

I am not saying anything now that I haven't been saying for 15 years.

This is not new.

It may be fun to make it more controversial, but this is something that should have been happening.

This is something that the Obama administration did, it's something the Bush administration did, it's something the Trump administration did, and it's something that the Biden administration stopped doing.

And that's why they lost.

And thank goodness that we can actually get back to the way things are supposed to happen in this country.

- So Governor, Trump has said he will utilize the National Guard to carry out mass deportations, so this would extend beyond people that have committed violent crimes.

Would you sanction the use of the Utah National Guard to aid in that?

- Look, we have not had any discussions about the details of any of this.

Trump has said a lot of things, and we'll wait until we have those discussions.

But look, ICE is so broken right now.

Like, there is no way right now that there will be any type of mass deportations.

It's impossible.

Again, they can't even take 100 criminals, serious criminals in this state, and deport them.

ICE has been broken in this state, for this leadership has been an embarrassment.

The sheriffs in our state have lost faith in ICE leadership in our state under the Biden administration.

We know that ICE has been sending undocumented immigrants to our state without them requesting it.

We have countless examples of people who have shown up, and we said, "Why are you here?"

They said, "Well, ICE just told me.

They just filled out my paper for me and sent me here."

They've lied about transportation.

They've lied to us about bed space.

We've offered fixes.

We've provided them facilities to lock up these criminals, and they won't negotiate.

They won't return calls.

They lie about Utah being a sanctuary state.

The ICE leadership in Utah has been embarrassing.

And so there is no way any of this is going to happen until we get an administration that can fix that piece of it and start taking, again, the thing that should have been done over the past four years and hasn't been done.

- If I could clarify, when I talked to District Attorney Sim Gill, he said it's better to have people serve their sentences and then deport them rather than so- - Sure.

Well, and it depends on the crime.

No question.

I mean, look, you know, if you're a murderer, we're not gonna deport you and have you come figure out a way to pay the cartels to get across the border and commit that type of crime again.

We're definitely not going to do that.

But there are certainly people in jail now that we could deport and save taxpayers millions of dollars.

- So I've talked with county sheriffs, and they've said that there is wide latitude when it comes to local law enforcement deciding how much they will participate in, you know, the federal enforcement of immigration law, unless the state instructs them, you know, to participate with ICE in a certain way.

And so the incoming ICE director, Tom Homan, and President Trump, yes, he says lots of things, but he has repeatedly said that this deportation agenda will, you know, touch 11 to 20 million, you know, immigrants who are here in the country illegally.

If the deportation agenda reaches that kind of vision, would you instruct local law enforcement in Utah to aid ICE?

- Again, Brigham, we'll have those conversations when we actually have a plan put forward.

I have not seen a plan.

I don't see any scenario under which 20 million people can be deported.

That's just not logistically possible right now, when we can't even deport, you know, somebody breaking the law down the street.

So that's where our focus is gonna be.

- A legislative audit came out recently talking about reviewing the election system.

I found a couple people who were dead apparently cast ballots, or people cast ballots on their behalf, a couple duplicate voters.

Speaker Schultz seems to be making a case that this proves that we need to eliminate mail-in voting, which is something you administered as lieutenant governor.

Would you be supportive of eliminating mail-in voting and- - No, I don't think we need to eliminate mail-in voting, but we should always be doing more to make it more secure.

And look, this is why we do these audits.

And it's important to do these audits to find flaws.

And they found a couple, and we should address those and do everything we can to continue to make elections safer.

I'm not here to defend our election system as being perfect.

And Speaker Schultz is right, that there are things that we can do to improve that.

And so we'll work very closely with the legislature to improve it.

We pass an elections bill every year, and that helps us be secure.

And I can tell you that back when we didn't have any mail-in voting, there were also occurrences of those types of things happening.

So there is no system that is perfect.

We just continue to work towards perfection, and I think there is more we can do.

I can tell you one area where I think we can make major improvements.

And that is we need to be able to count ballots on election night.

It should not take us two weeks to get answers in most of our races.

Now, there will always be some really, really tight races where that's the case, but for the most part, we should be able to make changes where that's the case.

And if that means we have to move the mail-in deadline earlier, so that those ballots can get processed earlier, and if you don't send it in by that date, then you have to come in and vote in person or deliver it in person, then I would be very supportive of that.

So I do think we can limit the scope of mail-in voting in a way that adds trust to the system and makes it easier for our clerks to administer.

Because right now, it's tough.

They're basically administering kind of three different elections.

You have the mail-in ballots that come in.

Then you have early voting, which is kind of a different election, where you show up and vote in person, but you do it not on Election Day.

And then you have Election Day voting.

And so administering those three things is very difficult.

We've made it really hard on our county clerks to be able to pull that off.

And because we do take security so seriously and have to verify all those signatures, it does take longer to process those.

And so I can see a world where we shorten that timeframe and have more people voting on Election Day so that we can count the vast majority, you know, 95% of the ballots by 10 or 11 o'clock on Election Day.

I think that would help everyone have more faith in the election system in a way that... Because what what happens inevitably is, you know, when you've got weeks, people start to doubt.

Why is it taking so long?

And even though there are great answers for that, it makes it really easy for chaos agents to come in and make up conspiracy theories about why it's taking so long.

- I know it's early to be asking these kinds of questions, but if the legislature sends you a bill to rescind mail-in voting, would you veto that?

- Well, it is early to be asking that.

I mean, I would have to see what else is in the bill and what they've thought through.

But it's highly unlikely I would sign a bill that completely eliminates mail-in voting.

- I wanna ask, would you be in favor of standardizing same-day voting systems across the state?

For example, Salt Lake County, if you vote on Election Day, you'd use a machine.

In Utah County, you fill out a paper ballot, which ended up causing some problems because they were running out of printed ballots with, you know, anticipated voter turnout being higher.

- No.

So I don't think we need to standardize that.

We do need to fix the same-day voter registration voting.

That takes a tremendous amount of time.

It doesn't need to take that much time.

We can simplify that in a way that will speed things up.

You know, just because somebody failed at their job, I mean, and didn't order enough paper and enough ink, I mean, that's no reason to change an electoral system.

It may be a reason to vote for somebody different for that position, but it's certainly not a reason to change the way they do the balloting in that place.

- SB54 has also been a topic of conversation this broader election season.

There was a recent editorial by some Republican lawmakers calling into question SB54, whether changes need to be made on that front.

Do you see any tweaks that need to be changed to that signature gathering law?

Or is there a compromise that can be struck between certain factions in the legislature and yourself?

- Yeah.

Well, I mean, SB54 is a compromise.

I mean, that's how SB4 came to be.

It's how we saved the caucus system.

I think many people who support the caucus system have forgotten that.

That we would not have a caucus system today if it was not for SB54.

There are certainly some things that we can do to improve it.

I've said I believe that people should be able to access those signatures.

The problem is the law said no.

And you can't tell people their signatures won't be released publicly and then release them publicly.

And so I support changing that law, to make it more transparent, so that those signature lists can be released.

I have no problem with that at all.

But I think SB54 strikes an important balance in keeping the caucus system alive, which I've supported, and I've said that all along, that I would not support getting rid of the caucus system, but also giving the public another vehicle.

And, you know, of course, I'm a prime example of this.

Most of the major electeds in this cycle, including our new state senator, our attorney general, myself, showed that Republicans in the state were not the same as the delegates, and saw things very differently.

- In a recent budget proposal, you proposed 3.7 million to help school districts manage cell phone usage in class.

What do you mean by "manage," and how do you see this as a problem?

- Yeah, yeah.

So thank you.

It's no secret that I believe, and the data now supports this, that cell phones and social media have been incredibly destructive to an entire generation of young people.

We've seen rates of self-harm, rates of depression/anxiety just skyrocket.

And again, more and more of the research has shown that it's not just a correlation, but there is a causal effect, as any parent will be able to tell you, that social media and unfettered access to phones are part of that.

When you look at what's happening in the classroom, too, and we now have countless examples of real-life data and real-life experience now, that when you take cell phones out of the classroom, learning improves drastically, and so does behavior.

And connection improves.

I've yet to meet a teacher in our state, in our country, or internationally, or read about one, where they removed phones from the classroom and things did not improve.

So it's one of the easiest things we can do to make our kids smarter and to make our kids safer.

And so there will be a bill this session to remove cell phones from the classroom.

I sent out a letter earlier this year, I'm trying to remember, or last year, I think it was earlier this year, encouraging all of our school districts to do this.

And those that have done it, again, have had tremendous success.

They all believe in it.

They all say the first couple days are a little rough.

It's a little bit like, you know, taking drugs away from an addict, because that's what they're doing.

Social media companies are very intentionally addicting our kids and us as adults to these platforms.

But after a couple days, everything improves.

And so what we need, though, is we need to be able to have a storage facility for those phones.

So pouches, there are lockers, whatever that looks like.

And that costs money.

And so that's why I put it in my budget, so that we would have an opportunity for every school and every school district to purchase places to store those phones.

- Governor, you just wrapped up a housing workshop with the Western Governors Association.

What did you learn or glean from those conversations?

And can we expect anything different policy-wise in 2025 with housing?

- Yeah, yeah.

So those workshops are ongoing.

And, you know, it's always fun when we find a way to work together across the aisle on issues.

And this is one where there's tremendous bipartisan support, on the right and the left.

Everyone knows we need to build more.

And so one of the reasons that the first of this... And this is Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham's initiative with the Western Governors Association.

She's the chair of that organization from New Mexico.

I'm the vice chair right now.

And every governor is supportive of this.

And there's a reason they chose to hold one of the first convenings, in fact, the first convening, here in Utah.

Because we are doing so much in this space.

But so is Montana and so is Colorado, and we're certainly learning from each other.

We've been talking.

I don't have anything I can share directly right now, but there are four or five bills that are in the works to help continue the progress that we've made to build more.

I will say, one of them is really focused on condominiums.

We've had a problem in the West and in Utah.

We don't build condominiums as much anymore.

There's some insurance issues, some liability issues that we really fixed 10 years ago in Utah.

But because we were the only state that kind of fixed them, and because so much of the insurance is kind of regional, it just never took hold.

And one of the reasons I like condominiums as opposed to apartment buildings is that, again, there is an ownership.

There is an entry-level opportunity for people, at the same price, basically, as renting a unit, to start building equity and to be able to move up.

And so we've been kind of scratching our heads and I guess putting our heads together with the financial folks, with insurance people, with developers, with cities trying to figure out what we can do to unlock people building condominiums again.

And so that's one of the areas where you'll certainly see some movement, but there will be several others.

- Can you give us an update on your plan to build 35,000 new starter homes by 2028?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So again, we're just starting to ramp this up.

It was a bold goal and one we're committed to trying to figure out.

And everybody's on board.

We've been meeting, again, over the course of the past few months, looking at the slow start that we're getting.

But those are bills that we passed last session that just went into effect in July, and now they're starting to move through the system.

And figuring out what the roadblocks are.

What's holding people back?

We know the demand is there, but it's what's stopping the supply.

And you'll see some more of that this legislative session.

- Governor, so far, the states have been unable to reach an agreement over the governance of the Colorado River.

- [Spencer] Yeah, yeah.

- Fights are spilling out into public.

Everybody's fighting over who cuts what and where.

What do you want Utah to get out of this?

And then, inversely, what concessions are you, on behalf of Utah, willing to offer?

- Well, look, you know, I won't get into the nitty-gritty details here, but it is pretty simple.

We just want fairness.

That's all we're asking for.

That whatever other states get, that Utah gets as well.

That's what the Upper Basin states have been proposing.

The Lower Basin states, it's no secret they've overutilized their share of that water, and we have underutilized our share.

And so we know that the hydrology of the river is not where people thought it was going to be 20 years ago.

So there's just less water all around.

And when you've oversubscribed to something where there's less of, that's deeply problematic.

And that's where, again, the majority of the cuts will have to come from.

There's just no question.

But we also wanna be good and willing partners.

And so we're trying to think outside the box.

You know, we should be doing desalination in California.

That makes a tremendous amount of sense.

It is expensive.

And we think that as a West, that's something we should all be working towards.

Figuring out win-wins for all of us.

We don't want them to go without, but we can't go without either.

- Governor, thank you.

That's all the time we have for the television portion of this broadcast.

Thank you so much for watching.

- [Announcer] This has been the Governor's Monthly News Conference.

For video and more information, visit pbsutah.org/governor.

(bright orchestral music)