TV shows and plans a trip to New Hampshire, but dodges the question about 2028.

A microphone is snatched from Congressman Thomas Massie at a GOP political event.

Senator Mitch McConnell is released from the hospital as the battle to succeed him heats up.

The Kentucky legislature considers a bare bones budget and dozens of proposed bills on education, housing and other areas.

On this Friday the 13th and Valentine's Day and President's Day weekend.

Comment is next on KET.

Good evening.

I'm Bill Bryant, and we welcome you to comment on Kentucky.

A look back at and some analysis of the week's news in the Commonwealth and the guests on our panel of working Kentucky journalists tonight are John Cheeves, reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

McKenna Horsley politics reporter for the Kentucky Lantern and Phillip Bailey, Louisville based chief political correspondent for USA today.

Also tonight, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul hauls in immigration officials for questions about Ice operations.

But first, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear keeps turning up on national TV shows.

He won't say he's running for president, but he talks about his concerns for the country and how he thinks they should be addressed.

>> This should concern everyone, and it should start with the fact that he didn't use nationalized in his first statement.

He said Republicans should take over elections in certain states.

This president does show you who he is, and he says the quiet part out loud so everyone can can hear it.

We're not going to let him mess with our elections.

>> All right.

So that was on The View where he appeared.

Phillip.

He was also on The Daily Show.

We know that Beshear is going to New Hampshire in early March.

Is this how you position yourself to run for the white House without saying you're doing that?

>> I don't think that Andy Beshear has to say he wants to run for president.

I think he's making it very clear in every other regard he's going to South Carolina.

He'll be in New Hampshire.

And when he's talked about, you know, who the next nominee for the Democrats need to be, he said, it needs to be a governor, and he just happens to be one.

I talked to him over the weekend and he contrasted himself very much so with Governor Gavin Newsom of California saying that, look, if Democrats are looking for someone who's going to be nasty on social media, if they're looking for a liberal Donald Trump, I'm not their guy.

And I think you see here with these sort of anti curious Democrats around the country who are getting to know him, he still is in the single digits.

When you talk about national polling as far as Democratic nominees are concerned, potential nominees are concerned.

But he is certainly making the rounds.

And I think carving out a space that he thinks is viable.

>> And he has been increasingly critical of President Trump, who carried Kentucky by 31 points in the 2024 election.

Is that what he thinks Democratic primary voters would want to hear?

>> Well, he knows that.

Look, you know, President Trump's approval numbers with Democrats is lower than it is with any other group.

So he knows that if you're going to be the Democratic nominee in the future, you're going to have to have to be able to take on Donald Trump.

The real question, I think, Bill, is where will the Democratic Party be and what mood are they in if they're in for a fighter, a more progressive, populist minded person, that may be someone like Gavin Newsom, right?

But if they're looking for someone who's more of a reconciliation candidate, you see a lot more Democrats talking about getting along with not necessarily Donald Trump, but Donald Trump's voters.

>> Is Beshear going to end up going to this on again, off again governors meeting at the white House next week?

>> He was among the 18 Democrats who said that they were not going initially when Donald Trump was going to Barr Governor Jared Polis of Colorado and Governor Wes Moore of Maryland.

Now that it's back on, they're still not inviting those two individuals who happen to be, by the way, the only black and gay governor in our country.

So it seems like the boycott still is on the DJ has not responded to our request on whether that boycott will remain, but it seems like they're going to stand united with their two colleagues.

>> McKenna these national shows are about ratings and audience size.

They evidently think Beshear is a good draw to be willing to book him on their shows.

>> Yes, definitely.

You know, I think Beshear in some ways is being propped up by national media as kind of the anti Newsom.

Right.

We've seen some pieces recently in the LA times.

Of course, Newsom is from California.

So it makes sense for their outlet to come here and interview our governor in that case.

But Beshear because he isn't really polling super well in these hypothetical primaries, he has to take every chance he gets to put his name out there and kind of remake his image as a possible candidate for Democratic voters across the country, not just here in Kentucky to go for.

>> And look, Andy Beshear is not necessarily always playing this mild mannered either, right?

Like when Donald Trump was in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, when Andy Beshear was asked about his plan to take over Greenland, the governor said that idea was, quote, dumb as hell.

So he knows in some places in spaces it's proper to take on Donald Trump, while at the same time being more sympathetic to Trump voters, who are a majority of his voters here in Kentucky.

>> John Beshear always touts the successes here in Kentucky when he's on these national shows.

And we know Republicans in the legislature are frustrated here at home and no doubt don't like it when he goes on national TV.

And don't give them some credit for some of the economic successes, in particular in recent years.

>> That's true.

The Republican legislative legislative leaders say, you know, we lowered taxes, we've cut regulations, we passed right to work and other parts of our agenda.

And we think that this had a lot to do with Kentucky's economy being in good shape.

And in many cases, we did this over Governor Andy Beshear veto.

He didn't support it at the time, even if sometimes he came around to support it after the fact.

And and so they do.

They openly resent the fact that he claims credit for Kentucky's economy, even though he was sometimes critical of the ideas that they believe helped spur the economy.

>> Phillip you know, Beshear does occupy this sort of position as a red state Democrat, right?

I mean, that's that is what he would offer in 2028.

>> I mean, that's his pitch to voters and Democratic voters is that I'm the Democrat who can go into these areas.

And this is something that the Democratic Party nationally has had to deal with right after the loss in 2024.

This concern of like, hey, Democrats, are you too afraid to go into places where people disagree with you?

And Andy Beshear's point is that I represent an area with majority Trump voters.

The test for Andy Beshear is going to be these gubernatorial races bill in these swing states like Pennsylvania and Michigan in particular.

I would pay attention to Georgia, which is a Republican held gubernatorial seat right now.

That is going to be an open seat.

Andy Beshear is the head of the DGA.

Wants to flip.

>> All right.

Well, we'll continue to watch his steps.

And in that trip to New Hampshire will be interesting.

Kentucky's longest serving senator ever, Mitch McConnell, was released from the hospital this week after eight days.

He went in after his office said he had experienced flu like symptoms.

And then we know, Phillip, that McConnell complied with his doctor's recommendation and worked from home for the rest of the week.

>> It certainly didn't get the same attention that it did maybe a few years ago when he was having other medical issues.

But when you look online, there was a video.

Someone captured a video before he went into the hospital of Senator McConnell basically being propped up and escorted out of Capitol Hill.

We're coming to the end, right of the McConnell era, maybe the most defining senator in our history, right up there with Henry Clay.

But at the same time, we are also in a conversation nationally in our country about the age of our elected officials, many elected officials who are in their late 70s and 80s, including the president of the United States.

So while whether you think whatever you think about Mitch McConnell's politics, I think this is a problem that we're having nationwide in our country about the age of our elected officials and our senator here is going through that right now.

>> As we've noted, McConnell seems very determined to finish his seventh term in Washington.

But if for some reason he couldn't do that, Governor Beshear would call a special election is what the law is now.

And that has changed in recent years.

>> Yes, that change came in 2024 from our General Assembly.

There's been a lot of back and forth over that.

How that succession would work out, if any senator would to or to not end their full term here in Kentucky.

>> Goes in 21.

The legislature had said it would have to be a senator of the party holding the seat, and.

>> Then political party of the person leaving office would get to put forward three names, and the governor could pick that.

They didn't want Andy Beshear or any other Democrat.

And Andy Beshear is likely to be the last Democrat for a little while to pick a Democrat to replace outgoing Republican Mitch McConnell.

So it was going to be the Republican Party putting forward three Republican names.

But it's a moot point now because the current law is that there'd be a special election and the voters would get to pick one nominee from each party, just just until the current term came to an end.

>> And again, evidently, Senator McConnell is doing better and will finish his term, presumably, the race to replace Senator McConnell is aggressive in both parties.

On the Republican side, Congressman Andy Barr released an ad that has been the topic of conversation because of some of the words he used to underscore his opposition to DEI initiatives.

>> You know what DEI really stands for?

Dumb, evil indoctrination.

Woke liberal spuit corporate losers fall for it.

But thanks to Trump, America is rejecting that trash and I'm leading the fight to end it for good.

I'm Andy.

>> John to be sure, all three major Republican candidates strongly oppose DEI.

But here you have Congressman Barr putting that front and center.

>> He is.

And Congressman Barr goes on to say he will not apologize for being a white male Christian, which certainly takes a lot of courage in Kentucky, where 86% of the people are white, 50% are male, and 72% call themselves Christian.

I don't know who he thought was asking him to apologize for it.

>> I think what we're seeing here, Bill, is that and this is happening on the right, we saw this at the Super Bowl, for example, right, with the Bad Bunny performance and conservative activists wanting to have their own alternative halftime performance with, you know, more conservative acts that were allied with Donald Trump.

The Republicans continue to sort of hit these culture war issues, even at a time when affordability and people are talking much more about their kitchen table issues.

Kentucky, for example, is one of the state's top five states, actually, where, you know, so many people are having trouble paying their basic groceries and other basic prices.

That's not the conversation in the Republican primary for U.S.

Senate.

It's largely either a culture war battle or who can be the most loyal to Donald Trump.

That seems to be what the three candidates want to talk about more than any other kitchen table issues that concern actual Kentuckians.

>> And here in Kentucky, Republican voters are primed for thinking about DEI.

It's a topic we've heard of a lot of conversation over the past couple of years.

Last year, the General Assembly passed a law that would bar DEI initiatives, programs, etc.

in higher education at the public universities that passed.

It got a lot of news coverage.

Beshear vetoed it, but it was overruled by the Republican supermajority.

That issue is coming up again in K through 12 education this session.

So it's something that I think are on the minds of Republicans in Kentucky.

>> Daniel Cameron is probably the best known of the three major Republican candidates.

Phillip.

But he also has the least money.

Polls have indicated that his initial lead may have evaporated.

>> And I think that lack of relationship with Senator McConnell, his political mentor, the two of them have reportedly fallen out.

I think that's pretty well known at this point.

So the lack of resources is beginning to catch up with the former attorney general, but he is the only statewide official among the three.

So certainly he would have the higher name recognition.

This is the issue, I think, for Daniel Cameron is how is he going to distinguish himself?

He's really leaning to the faith voters.

He's really leaning into sort of the liberty wing of the state Republican Party.

But as time goes on, he's going to have to find a way to stay in this fight, whether it's ads or other means.

And that lack of support from team, team Mitch and Team McConnell is beginning to catch up with him.

>> Elon Musk invested $10 million by donating to a PAC supporting Nate Morris.

Is that having an impact in your view?

>> Well, look, the audaciousness of a $10 million contribution by Elon Musk, the world's richest human being, right?

We saw this last year when he donated $20 million in that race in Wisconsin for Supreme Court, and ultimately didn't go his way there.

So money doesn't always equate, right, a victory.

Nate Morris, for the most part, hasn't really been here on the ground in Kentucky as far as the candidacy is concerned.

He announced his campaign not here in Kentucky, but on a podcast with Donald Trump Jr.

He's getting this outside support.

But what it's doing is it's giving Andy Barr some contention here.

He has to be distracted by all this make.

Morris is largely self-financing.

He's getting this outside support.

So it's really more about him and Barr at this point having this battle on the airwaves.

But we're not seeing it translate into Nate Morris doing better in the polls.

>> The Democratic race for the Senate nomination is also crowded, but it seems a little more cordial.

Are we right?

For now.

>> The rematch between Amy McGrath and Charles Booker at this point is cordial.

I think it's largely because that Emerson poll, which has Charles Booker in the lead, right, with an 11 point lead, and it's very different than it was six years ago when Amy McGrath, clearly by both money and support from the establishment, was the clear frontrunner.

When you look at that Emerson poll today, though, 43% of Democratic voters are still undecided.

I think we don't know yet because Democratic voters are still trying to figure it out.

Remember, Booker ran again in 2022 and lost by big numbers.

So I think for Democratic voters here in the state when it comes to that primary, they're still trying to figure things out.

>> There was drama in the fourth district congressional race here in Kentucky, where Thomas Massie is the incumbent and Ed Gallrein is challenging in the primary with President Trump's backing.

Massie was speaking to a Lincoln Day dinner event in Oldham County when state House Speaker David Osborne grabbed a microphone from him.

>> The chain of command does not go to the commander in chief.

When you are a congressman, you weren't.

Not for the speaker of the House.

I was for you.

>> Well, McKenna, there was there were some interesting words said right after that.

And that video came from a Senate candidate?

>> Yes, from another Senate candidate on the Republican side.

Michael Ferris took that video.

And it's definitely making the rounds on X in particular, formerly Twitter.

A few seconds after that clip ends, you hear somebody in the background say, welcome to the Snakepit, baby, which I had to include in my story, because I think that really sums up how this fourth congressional primary is playing out, not just out here in Kentucky, but it will probably play out at the national level as well.

This is a very personal race for the incumbent, Thomas Massie, and it's also quite a personal race for the president, who has endorsed someone against him and talks about it frequently on Truth Social in the past couple of days.

>> McKenna is absolutely right.

I mean, if there's going to be a test of the shifting ground of MAGA land, it's going to be here in Kentucky's fourth Congressional district.

You're seeing the president, who has 61% disapproval ratings.

You're seeing his coalition really beginning to unravel.

There's this real you know, that clip more than anything else, I think Bill represents the problem for the Republicans right now.

Remember, Thomas Massie was one of the people who voted for one of the six Republicans in the House voted to reject and rescind Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada.

He's really distinguishing himself on the Epstein files.

So this shifting ground where you see some Republicans sticking with the president really heavy, but others saying, you know what, I'm starting to have ideological differences with this.

President Donald Trump's coalition is beginning to unravel.

And the first test of that, how strong he still is with his disapproval numbers going up and what's going on with Minnesota and pulling out of with immigration enforcement, Thomas Massie is going to be at the forefront of that test.

>> Well, it was something to see, right?

Well, the national political issues are swirling.

The Kentucky legislature continues to work on a budget and consider new laws.

The approach of cutting the state income tax is important to the Republican legislative leadership and others.

The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy released a poll this week indicating most Kentuckians don't think they have benefited from the cuts.

Ashley what's the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce strongly disagrees.

>> Our income tax here in Kentucky has lowered from 6% to now 3.5%, and we're well on our way.

Hopefully next year we will meet those triggers that were set out by the General Assembly a couple of years ago in House Bill eight, and get down to 3% income tax.

That is a half that is cutting your income taxes almost in half.

So to talk about that would not impact an average Kentucky family I think is just false.

It leaves more money in people's pockets.

>> Well, only 9% of Kentuckians in the poll said that they were better off, that they were benefiting from the income tax cuts.

Many people said they they didn't notice any difference or they're just not even sure.

And that's a from a plan that's costing over $2 billion a year, the biggest financial outlay of resources in decades in the state.

And, you know, I understand why people don't feel like they're feeling it.

Most of it goes to the wealthy.

>> Phillip two very different perspectives on the the importance of those income tax cuts.

>> Look, affordability remains the most important issue for Americans across this country.

And no one is going to come out at this time period and say, oh, I want to raise taxes on folks, right?

Poll after poll shows that that's not where the American people want to do or feeling right now.

But what's interesting, though, Bill, is, is that YouGov just came out with a poll this week that shows 60% of Americans do want to tax billionaires.

And as you're seeing these associations with the Trump administration and these tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and others, there is this rising sort of feeling that, look, the wealthy 1% people are benefiting from all this.

Where is it for everyone else that's happening?

You know, on the right, obviously with the MAGA movement, but it's also happening.

We're seeing it on the left with the rise of the new mayor of New York City, democratic socialist.

Again, I think you're going to see much more support and conversation about corporate tax increases on the left.

>> The Republican budget proposal has been described as bare bones.

But this week, some superintendents appear to the Capitol to ask for full funding for transportation.

And McKenna, one of those superintendents, John Seiler from Whitley County, told lawmakers that he would have to rob from other programs or teachers pay or other areas in order to fund transportation.

>> Right.

And he even recalled to previous years when they had to take money from the general fund that would normally go to things like instructional resources like laptops or something like that for students to use and use that toward transportation to get them to school.

A lot of the education advocates that I'm hearing from administrators, teachers, etc.

they're really concerned about the SEEK formula that's in that bare bones budget right now.

As it's currently written.

It wouldn't have an increase in the second year of the state budget.

So I think some people are hoping to see an increase in the future.

>> They want more money.

Yes.

Yeah.

For people.

Senator Stephen West, who runs the Senate Education Committee, says the number one reason that teachers say they leave jobs is school leadership.

He's proposing Senate Bill four.

It would help mentor principals.

>> If you're going to be a new principal in Kentucky, and this is for new principals, the first cohort would be all new principals.

If you're going to be a principal in Kentucky, what do you need to know about being a principal?

What do you need to know about school security?

What do you need to know about liability?

What do you need to know about working with teachers and and helping them in the classroom?

All the things you need to know to be a good principal in Kentucky.

>> McKenna.

There is a lot of focus on school leadership this session.

>> Yes, particularly from the Senate Republican side.

They have several bills in their top ten bills that they put out each year that deal with education this time around, particularly school governance and administration as well.

Some other bills that have moved out of the chamber include one that would prohibit pay raises, percentages for school administrators to outpace, prevent them from outpacing teachers in the district.

There's another one about financial transparency within school districts and making that more accessible to members of the community and keeping that online.

So that's definitely a focus for Republicans.

>> The role of site based councils, I think, is also under debate.

>> Yes, that's not one of the priority bills, but that is something that has been talked about in the chamber.

It would.

Senator Aaron Reed is sponsoring that one.

He said the bill is intended to establish more accountability for those in school districts.

>> Senator Danny Carroll is sponsoring a bill that would create a child psychiatric facility.

>> Without question.

There are enough kids that are assessed that would would fit this definition and would be housed in this facility.

That that facility is not going to sit empty.

>> And we equate this with a youth, for example, who is suffering from an appendicitis attack.

We would not just keep them in a juvenile detention center.

I think everybody would agree they need to go to a clinical medical facility for care, and youth with severe mental health needs are no different.

>> John you have extensively covered the challenges Kentucky has with youth offenders and those in need of psychiatric services.

What would this do?

>> There are kids who have been committed to state custody for a wide variety of reasons.

They've got psychiatric issues.

They may be too dangerous to put in a typical inpatient residential treatment facility.

Right now, the default for a lot of them is to hold them in a juvenile detention center.

It's the wrong place for them.

It's dangerous.

The neglected there and the detention center freely admits they don't know how to treat psychiatric cases.

Governor Beshear has asked for, and Senator Carroll is trying to get money for a $35 million mental health center.

The state of South Carolina has been leading the way on this sort of thing right now.

The House budget in its current form does not have the money for it.

Maybe it will.

Before the end of the session.

The Beshear administration and Senator Carroll have been pushing for this for the last few years.

It would be a place for not just kids in the Department of Juvenile Justice's custody, but all state custody kids to maybe get some mental health care that they need.

>> Affordable child care is has been a talker going into this session.

And you're covering some developments in that area.

>> There's a lot of bills right now to help provide affordable, reliable, safe child care for working families in Kentucky.

The biggest one moving right now is House Bill six.

It's based on some Chamber of Commerce recommendations, a lot of interesting things in there.

There's about a dozen moving parts.

It would create micro centers, smaller daycares with fewer hours to help serve child care deserts or parents with nontraditional hours.

It would strengthen the five star quality rating system that the state offers so parents can evaluate daycare.

It would require more employee training hours for working with children who have special needs, and it would make permanent this really innovative idea Kentucky has had for free child care for child care workers, which is a great idea because they don't get paid very much $14 an hour.

So we can give them one benefit.

We can at least give them free child care to keep them working in the daycare centers.

>> That's almost an omnibus bill, isn't it?

>> It really is.

It's 43 pages long.

>> McKenna.

The legislature also has some attempts at addressing the housing shortage.

>> Yes, that's something we've heard a lot from the interim session.

So it makes sense that this is going to be a priority, particularly on both sides this session.

But Senate Bill nine from Senator Robby Mills, who's also a member of Republican leadership in the chamber, has a provision that would provide property tax rebates to developers for up to seven years in designated housing development districts.

And that's a goal to the goal is to remove red tape.

>> Then there's a new push to allow political candidates to use campaign funds for security for themselves and their families.

Phillip a sign of the times.

>> Look, if there's one spot where there could be some bipartisan support, it would be on this.

I mean, remember last year we were marred by multiple examples of political violence, the assassination, the heinous assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Before that, we saw Melissa Hortman, a state legislator in Minnesota who was shot and killed.

And remember, during the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump, while in Butler, Pennsylvania, was almost assassinated.

We have six states already built that have laws like this already on the books, and there are many other states this year, Kentucky among them, that are pushing for this.

If you're going to see an area in which there might be an agreement between Democrats and Republicans, it's allowing candidates to protect themselves.

And particularly when I looked at this, their families, when candidates like a group like democracy Protection, security protection or Security project, excuse me, they've talked to hundreds of candidates who have come forward about this.

And they say more than anything else, they're concerned about their families, their children who are being doxed, harassed and threatened simply for running for public office.

>> Religious liberty and health care has been a discussion this week as well.

There's been a bill on that.

>> Yes, health care is often debated in the legislature, and there's several proposals on that.

So we'll probably come up.

The rest.

>> Of the people could object to certain treatments that they, you know, that they could, would not be forced to do if they objected.

And that has been very controversial.

Back in Washington, Senator Rand Paul was in the spotlight chairing a committee looking at immigration enforcement.

Phillip.

He wanted to hear from all sides.

>> Look, I think Senator Paul is trying to distinguish himself and find a new pathway for whatever the Republican Party might be post Donald Trump.

He certainly is willing to hold the president to task, whether it's on immigration, whether it has been on the use of military force in international affairs.

He was on 60 minutes and was not holding back at all about his opinions on how the president is using his military power or using his executive power there.

When you see it on the immigration front, I think what's interesting Bill here is that, again, the liberty wing of the Republican Party is beginning to look at MAGA very differently than it did even a month ago.

I think Senator Paul is going to be a major part of that conversation again.

He's going to be a major player in that Kentucky fourth congressional race as well.

>> Does he is there a lane for him to swim in in the 2028 presidential election?

>> It's a narrow one.

I mean, I think that when you look at the MAGA movement, not necessarily the Republican Party, we're not necessarily talking about someone who's already in office running for president.

On the Republican side, we're talking about figures on the outside, like a Tucker Carlson being thrown around.

But I think Rand Paul is certainly going to be in that conversation.

>> Presidents day is Monday.

It is the closest to the birthdays of the first president, George Washington and Kentucky born President Abraham Lincoln.

[MUSIC] But it is generally considered a holiday that celebrates all the birthdays of all the presidents.

[MUSIC] There will be some holiday closings and some schedule adjustments, so you might want to check before you're heading out.

Thank you for joining us for comment on Kentucky.

Have a good week ahead.