Ambassador Craft, it's a pleasure to be with you.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for allowing me to be on.

It's great to see you.

Good to see you.

How's it going on the campaign trail?

You know, it's it's energizing when you when you meet people.

And I've been traveling across the state, crisscrossing from corner to corner.

And the more people I meet, the more energized I am and the more affirmation that I made the right decision.

So many people wonder why you want to be governor.

What's the answer?

Well, you know, the two of us, we both were able to achieve Kentucky's promise.

And for so many Kentuckians, their concern that their children are not going to have Kentucky's promise within reach.

And we have, you know, systems that are failing us.

Our education system.

You know, my mom was a teacher.

I'm very concerned that teachers are being, you know, directed as what they are allowed to teach and that parents are not having the right to be engaged in their child's education.

And what's more important than our kids?

Our kids have the rights to have their parents involved in their education And education is important to us, as I'm sure you know, with with the craft academy and with our engagement with the leadership for Institute for High School Principals and the University of Kentucky and Available and Alice Lloyd College.

So it's very that's a very important part of our philanthropy education in Kentucky.

And I see that we need to take control.

We need to make certain upon my first day as governor, I will dismantle the Department of Education.

And that means I'll take it apart and I'll put it back together.

But I don't.

Mean abolishing it.

You mean just restructuring it?

And what way?

Well, you take it apart.

You put it back together.

There are really great people within the Kentucky Department of Education.

They've been silenced and they've been silenced by this woke Commissioner Glass.

And so I think the first step I will take as governor is if Commissioner Glass has not already done the right thing on Inauguration Day and resigned, then I will do the right thing and I will fire him because we have to make certain that there are three parties engaged here that matter.

Our teachers, our children and parents.

What is the litmus test you'll use in determining the qualifications of an education commissioner?

What would you look for in them?

You know, I'm taking what I have been listening to across the state and what parents are looking for and what teachers remember.

It's just as important that teachers have a say in who the education commissioner will be.

And what I will be looking at is all the qualifications that I've heard that we need more of in all of the qualifications that we need less of.

So it's going to be someone that understands that our children need to be taught skills and knowledge.

They need to have, you know, arithmetic, writing and reading and civics, financial literacy.

They do not need to be taught sexual idealization.

They do not need to be taught critical race theory.

They need to be taught responsibility, accountability and consequences.

And we're teaching what I see children now are being told what to think, not how to think.

And if we're going to be competitive in the state of Kentucky with our future workforce, we need to have children graduating that are prepared and children on the pathway to reach their full potential.

There are many Ambassador Craft who say that in the K through 12 public education system in Kentucky, CRT is not being taught.

Do you have examples to the contrary?

I do have examples.

There is a mother at the Audubon Elementary School in Louisville who has sent me a coloring book that her fifth grader brought home and then, matter of fact, today, early this morning before I arrived here, a parent called me and said that she had been given this by her daughter.

Her four year old.

This was something at school.

She was reading it to her daughter and it is questioning identity.

This book is for 3 to 7 year olds.

This is happening at our elementary school in Lexington.

We have to make certain that our children are taught what is going to help them reach their full potential.

We've got to get back to family table values.

We've got to get back to God at the center of the table where parents also teach their children responsibility, accountability and consequences.

We have to allow our teachers to teach also our teachers to have the right to discipline.

Obviously, there are guidelines to this, but teachers are not respected.

The one the stories I'm hearing from teachers and from bus drivers, from cafeteria workers, from personnel on the school, students as young as first grade are being very disrespectful.

So we need to take the whole family, the whole family unit, that kitchen table and stress that it begins at home.

And when they are in school, that they're prepared and that teachers have the right to teach.

And parents need to have the right to be engaged in their child's education.

If we think about some of the recent actions of the General Assembly that date back not even to the 23 session, but before that, your running mate who at the time was the Senate Education Committee chairman, Senator Max Wise, sponsored what many called a CRT light measure that required 24 documents and text to be taught, etc., that were to get at some of the criticism about CRT.

We noticed this year Senate Bill 150, which took a lot of oxygen in the Kentucky General Assembly that many say targeted transgender youth with pronoun use guidelines and bathroom policies and not teaching sexual orientation, sexual identity.

All of those actions by your running mate, were they coordinated with your campaign?

Was that a part of an overall strategy to pass legislation that would also abide by and align with what your campaign is espousing?

So just to go back, I don't believe that it's targeting.

I believe it's protecting is protecting our children from being exposed.

I don't think it's children as much as it is as adults, telling children what to think, what to think about themselves.

I did not speak with Max Wise concerning this piece of legislation, nor anyone for that matter, in our General Assembly.

What I think is important is to remember that we care about the mental health of all young adults.

We want to make certain that that children are not having surgeries that are irreversible and are not participating in any hormone therapy that is irreversible.

We are protecting children.

These are our children.

And I've been traveling with Riley Gaines and you know her story.

And she was an NCAA swimmer at the University of Kentucky.

And to hear a young woman's story in her locker room, NCAA tournament, you know, girls are very vulnerable anyway, changing into and she described the swimsuit the size of a cover of an infant size swimsuit that you're pouring your body into.

And everyone is all the girls, women are they are together, changing.

And all of a sudden in walks a65 male who proceeds to look at them.

And then he proceeds to unclothed and everything is exposed.

They had not been forewarned.

They had not been asked for their opinion on this.

And to hear her story, I know that our legislators made the right decision.

Piers, I have 12 grandkids, nine granddaughters.

I can't imagine the ones that are under age being in their girls restroom in school and having a junior high male walk in.

We have to protect our children.

As you know, there's so much conversation about learning loss from COVID, about how far behind Kentucky's kids are when it comes to reading, to literacy and other subjects of academic performance.

Where is the focus on those issues that could have real consequences?

Should a child start behind and continue behind and to matriculating until adulthood?

What's the craft plan to get at those learning loss and to make gains?

Well, look, I look at Secretary Davos, our former secretary of education.

I look at her education, educational freedom.

Every child is different.

They have one thing in common.

They all dream.

So every child learns differently.

We need to make certain that we have choices.

Even children in the same family have different learning abilities, learning at different levels.

We need to provide that the money needs to follow the child.

We need to have educational choices for parents.

We want to make certain that teachers are not held back, nor are they holding students back in the classroom because they have so many different learning levels of the same age.

But in the classroom, it's not fair for any of the students, nor for the teacher.

So whether it is traditional school or charter schools that are a form of traditional school, private schools, online learning, homeschooling, whatever it may be, what suits that child in order for them to reach their full potential.

And competition is very healthy.

And like I said, what's more important than our children?

I want to pivot now to talk about you and your prime challenger, I guess we should say the attorney general, Daniel Cameron.

You have been making gains.

The last poll showed that you're within six point striking distance of Mr. Cameron.

We'll see how all of that turns out.

But certainly there have been gains made by you and Commissioner Ryan Quarrels as well.

But I want to talk about an ad that you call you criticized Daniel Kahneman of the woke DOJ report on Louisville police that found that the Louisville Metro Police Department had a pattern of abuse and civil rights violation.

And this, of course, stemmed in part from the Breonna Taylor raid of 2020 and the killing of her in that apartment.

I want to ask you about Wokeism, and you've been asked before what it stems from, what it encompasses and what's next.

So let's let's start with the DOJ ad about, you know, Daniel Cameron.

His did not prosecute any lmpd officer for Taylor's death.

So is it fair to go after him for being on the side of Biden at this particular juncture?

I think what is fair are the facts.

And the facts are that he he found it acceptable that this Department of Justice, led by a very woke Attorney general, Merrick Garland, would come into Louisville to make an announcement concerning our Louisville Metro Police Department.

These are Kentucky police officers.

We have to make certain that we respect them, that we defend them.

They defend us every day.

We need to defend them from Joe Biden.

His woke attorney general coming into the state of Kentucky to try to, first of all, disparage them.

Second of all, to take control, if you can.

We both know from the Louisville shooting, how could anyone find fault with the Louisville Metro Police Department in light of the fact that they saved so many lives, tragedies that could have been they were there within 3 minutes.

You know, they are doing the best job they can do given the resources, given the respect, given what their their call time is, what their help is within their offices, that's another area.

They need not only additional officers on the streets with them, but they need their resources within their office.

So is there ever an instance where you can think of that would be an unjustified use of force?

Many would say that that was the case in the Breonna Taylor case.

Do you agree or disagree?

You know, what is really sad is we lost a life and that's what we have to remember.

Breonna Taylor is no longer with us.

And that's sad.

Not only that, that's for her family.

So that's what I'm focused on.

It's not for me to judge.

I wasn't here.

I was not the attorney general.

And what is important is that we learn from mistakes.

We correct them.

We stand up for our law enforcement and we make certain that whatever they need, that as governor of Kentucky, they receive, We can't talk about helping our law enforcement or our teachers or anyone for that matter, on an election year.

They protect us every day of the year.

We need to give back the same and protect them.

When it comes to the term wokeism.

Where does that go next?

We can say that it's a reaction to the anti-racism activities that did STEM in part from Breonna Taylor and from George Floyd.

We know that that term rose through the vernacular at that time, but we're seeing it also when it comes to the transgender LGBTQ community.

Many people ask who's next and what's next when it comes to facing the woke agenda from the left?

What's next?

But that's very important to ask because if we do, if we allow this to continue, then that becomes normalized.

Then you open the door for whatever else may be there, where it is affecting our children, where it is affecting our churches, where it is affecting our workplaces and our homes.

We have to stand up for what is truth.

Truth is a thing.

It's not a philosophy.

We need to be focused on producing young adults in this state that are work ready, that are reaching their full potential.

I want to produce master electricians, master plumbers, not activist.

I want to make certain that our children stay in Kentucky, that we build up our population.

We build up our workforce.

When a young adult graduates and they have a job, they have a good paying job, they stay in their community.

They have families there.

Their children are grandchildren of someone in that community normally.

So that you create that community atmosphere.

That's how our state is going to grow.

And speaking of, if you think about Indiana and Tennessee, we're sandwiched in between.

We lose jobs to Indiana and Tennessee.

We are losing population because people are looking for either lower individual income tax or more opportunities or more respected technical colleges.

We need to be focused on how are we going to build up our state.

You know, I'm sure you heard on KSR.

I said to Matt Jones, I can't wait for you to brag about us beating Tennessee and the economy.

Right.

It's not enough to beat a state on the football field in the basketball court.

We need to be competitive.

When you raise the bar high, you're going to be the first at the table.

You're going to have record employment.

You're going to have an increased population when you keep the bar low.

Sure, it's easy to meet that.

Kentucky can do better.

You know, I negotiated the largest trade deal in American history, United States-mexico-canada Agreement.

I brought thousands of jobs to this state.

I know the potential of Kentuckians.

It's a heart of Kentucky are our workers.

And I know this can be done again.

And if we do not build up our workforce participation, then we're not going to be able to attract industry.

We're not going to be able to allow our small and medium businesses to grow.

And to that point, Ambassador Craft, we know that we have slid in the numbers since the pandemic when it comes to workforce participation.

And one segment of the economy, economy, many people would point to are former offenders.

We know that previous Republican Governor Matt Bevin really made that a part, a central piece of his gubernatorial administration focusing on successful reentry.

You have gone after a political action committee, has gone after Daniel Cameron for being soft on crime because of his justice reform efforts when it comes to reentry, supporting bail reform.

But yet we know as Governor Matt Bevin once said, 95% of those behind bars will come out.

What do you say to that population?

Is there a place for them to be reintegrated into society as successful and productive members and not being accused?

If someone is working on their behalf of being woke because they're trying to reintegrate these people into society and have them pay taxes?

Well, let's talk let's talk You have kind of three issues there.

So let's talk about that.

I do not coordinate with the super PAC, but I do understand that the attorney general called them silly.

Well, I don't think it's silly when you speak to a mother or father who's been affected by someone that wasn't prepared to leave incarceration, or if you speak to our law enforcement and they make an arrest and that person is let out on cashless bail or just slapped on the wrist.

I don't think that's silly.

What we have to do with nonviolent offenders, people, misdemeanor years from from drugs before they are released, whether it is incarcerating, whether it's juvenile detention, whether it's rehab, we have to make certain that they have the skills in order to be reintroduced into the workforce.

But it's not enough just to have something within.

They have to be accepted when they walk out.

Otherwise, it's a revolving door.

I said it in a women's cell in northern Kentucky and two of the women were getting ready to be released on misdemeanor.

They didn't want to leave because they had nowhere to go.

They didn't even have a library card.

They had no I.D..

So what we need to do, it's our responsibility that if you're going to work hard and be clean and turn your life around, I believe in chances.

We need to help them be successful.

So we need to make certain before anyone leaves rehab or incarceration or juvenile detention that they have the skills, that they have a place to go.

That we have partnered with businesses in our community that will allow them the opportunity for a job.

You know, Joe and I just made an announcement in not county.

We're partnering with Good Samaritan's Purse and Appalachia, the Foundation for Appalachia, Kentucky, on building 57 homes for those who are displaced.

Well, we are so fortunate that we're going to be able to employ individuals that are coming out of drug court and that are still in rehabilitation, but that really want a second chance or third chance, because what this does for them is it allows them the opportunity to check the boxes that are required either from drug court or from being incarcerated.

And it gives them dignity.

We want people to feel needed.

We want them to know that the communities, depending upon them, their families are depending upon them, their churches.

We want them to know that they have that safety net, but they're also needed.

So it's up to us.

And you look at juvenile detention.

We certainly don't want young adults going back there because a lot of them reached the age of 18 and then they're in another system.

We have a lot of mental health issues going on within inside juvenile detention.

We need to make certain that we say, who let you down?

How can we help you?

We want to make sure you obtain your GED or put you back into the high school.

We've got to remove you.

Remove you from your playground and your playmates.

We want you to be successful.

I know so many businesses that are welcoming individuals just such as this because they want them to be successful.

Because what does that do?

It builds up our workforce.

It will have a success rate because they then can tell the friends that they're around and know I'm not doing that anymore because I have dignity, I have a job, and we can do this in the state of Kentucky.

I want to go back to a point you made that some of the ads we're seeing are by political action committees working on your behalf, but not colluding or coordinating with you because you are not breaking any campaign finance laws by being in contact with them.

So we'll just make that point very plain and clear right there.

Okay.

I do want to I know your time is is precious and I don't want to dominate your time.

I do want to talk about just a couple of other issues when it comes to President Trump.

So you were former President Trump's ambassador to Canada, the United Nations, as we all know.

But President Trump endorsed Daniel Cameron and not you.

Did you talk to the president about that?

You know, I was not in the race, so President Trump did not make a choice.

It was several months actually, before I entered the race.

And no, I did not speak with President Trump about that.

I worked tirelessly.

Joe and I both worked tirelessly for then candidate Donald Trump to make certain that he was elected president.

He saw that work ethic, and he appointed me as the first female ambassador to Canada, But he appointed me there because he saw the work ethic.

He campaigned on tearing, tearing up NAFTA.

And he said, this is what we're doing.

We're going to negotiate.

We're going to negotiate to make certain that we keep hundreds of thousands of jobs in America and not outsourced to China or to Mexico.

We're going to make certain that we protect our farmers, our coal miners, our small business owners, our manufacturing industry.

We must make certain we keep jobs and create jobs in America.

Through negotiating, I was able to bring thousands of jobs to the state of Kentucky, whether it's with our family, farming industry, our manufacturing, our coal industry, our small businesses.

He saw that work ethic.

He then appointed me as the ambassador to the United Nations, where I sat across another table at this time with the Chinese Communist Party, and I stood up to them because I knew they were purchasing Kentucky farmland.

They're purchasing properties around military bases.

The tick tock that's living in everyone's home.

The human rights abuses.

And they're producing fentanyl.

I think it's really important that we we talk about drugs in Kentucky.

I went Renee, I went to the border because I wanted to see for myself.

It's wide open that fentanyl is coming from our border, moving up toward Kentucky's border.

I'm not going to wait and sign a letter with other governors.

Does it work that way?

I'm going to initiate this.

I'm going to be calling Governor Abbott.

We're going to have a hotline because before these cartels travel out of Texas, they need to know that road doesn't lead to Kentucky.

And you're saying you want the death penalty?

Yes, I do.

Now, how would that happen?

Because that would have to be done by statute, correct?

Correct.

Just by executive orders to accomplish that.

Well, I would be able to sign that death warrant.

And if a cartel member, a trafficker, a dealer, anyone gives drugs to a Kentucki I will sign their death warrant because I've had a child, I've had that empty chair.

I'm very fortunate that she's a healthy young woman now.

But there is not one family in the state of Kentucky that has not felt the pain of addiction in their family or about someone that's very near and dear to them.

Ambassador, I do have to ask you about that ad that came out as kind of a debut of your platform.

And many people had lots of questions after watching that ad about did that mean that your loved one passed?

What was the relation of that loved one?

And many people wondered, Well, I'm questioning her judgment by leaving so many.

Fill in the blanks.

Do you regret the missteps of that ad?

Would you have liked to have been more clear about who you were talking about and the impact it's had?

Or do you think that the public and maybe the media has been over scrutinizing that ad?

I absolutely would run that ad over and over again and not change a thing because just today, I just met with two mothers, both who have adult children that are back on drugs again.

And they came up to me to say, our chair is empty again.

An empty chair means that person is just not sitting there.

And as a mother, I do not want another mother feeling that pain because that chair is empty when your loved one is sitting in it because they're high or they're deceiving you.

It's empty when they when they run away or when they're incarcerated, it's empty when they're in rehab.

I never want a mother to feel that pain.

And if I can help save one child, that is exactly why I ran that I had.

To make a really tough pivot back to President Trump.

Do you still support him, given the fact that he has had a historic criminal indictment?

He's facing other investigations, the Georgia 2020 election interference investigation, a pair of investigations and his actions around January six and the mishandling of classified documents.

Do you still support him?

Would you still want his endorsement?

And should you come out of the primary May 16th?

Would you call on him to stop for you around Kentucky?

Well, let's first of all, talk about I worked under President Donald Trump not once as the ambassador to Canada, where he put me there for a reason.

That was because we were negotiating the largest trade deal in American history.

And then at the United Nations, the other top post to take on the Chinese Communist Party.

We worked tirelessly for President Trump to make certain he was elected.

The Department of Justice is being using this this department as a political weapon.

They have been since the Obama administration.

They're using this against anybody who doesn't believe in their woke ideologies.

President Trump was a target when he was candidate Trump when he came down that escalator.

He became their target.

He has not been proven guilty.

And we owe it to President Trump or anyone else to allow the system to work.

And I'm not going to stand back and watch anyone kowtowed to this Department of Justice that has done nothing but target President Trump.

Target our Louisville Metro Police Department.

And who knows what else next?

I know his work ethic.

I can tell you that at the United Nations every single day, our priority was keeping this country safe.

Our priority was keep keeping this country energy independent, was keeping this country from the Chinese Communist Party, which would love nothing more than to take take this country down.

And I tell young, young adults all over the state, we are the superpower.

There's not a body double.

There's not the HAMIILTON play waiting to take our place.

Sure.

There's Iran, there's Russia, there's Venezuela, there's China.

We were safe.

We were safe for four years.

And I will be forever grateful that I was able to serve in an administration that led to the prosperity for those four years.

Can you imagine if we hadn't have had this and then gone through COVID, if we hadn't have had us, Syria, and we hadn't assigned that trade deal, if we hadn't have called out the Chinese Communist Party.

Where we would be now.

And so you support his third bid for president?

I'm going to support the candidate that is going to take us back to those principles, to our Constitution, to our rule of law, to our democracy.

And, you know, President Trump did just that.

But you're saying that it could be another candidate who is like President Trump, who you would also support?

You know, I'm focused right now on May 16th, and I'm focused on defeating Andy Beshear.

And while I served under President Trump and I respect him right now, I'm focused on Kelly Craft, governor of Kentucky.

Well, thank you, Ambassador Craft, for spending some time with us today.

Really appreciate.

It.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you, Madam Ambassador.