Governor mike dewine, welcome to firing line. Good to be with y. Thank you very much. You are the republican governor of ohio, and you took very early action to contain covid19 in your state, earning bipartisan praise from across the country. And for the past six weeks, cases have been rising again your state. And you say that ohioans have reached, quote, the mostic cr point in our battle against the corovirus. Ea what did youby that . Well, i think it could go either way in ohio at this you know, went back and looked where florida was a month they were about wh are then, today, about 6. 5 positivity. So these things can go south on you real quick. And so were were concerned out it. But the real message for ohioans is, you know, well need to wear masks, w all need to keep our social distance, and we all need just to be careful. We can do this. We can bring the economy back. We can go to work, but we have to be very, very careful. But ive bn trying to see exactly where the spread is actually taking place. And its aot of what you would expect. Some of its occurring in bars, some of its occurring in churches. But, you know, a lot of it is just with people just beingav people andg friends over and having a backyard picnic or having a bridal shower. And so you got to assume so many people we ow ecause we now know have it and dont give any signs of it,n they dont know they have it. You know, lets take a look at an image, governor. The following graph shows new cases reported daily in ohio. And in april, you can see theres an intense spike, and now there is a me steady climb, and the daily totals are worse now than they were in april, with a new record of more than 1,600 cases from one day last week. Why is that happening, governor . Well, i think its happening because ohioans are tired of staying home. Theyre going out. You know, if you look at our highway data, were pretty much back to normal driving. If you look at cellphone data, which, of course, is available to anyone on the internet, youll see in ohiowere pretty much back to normal activity. So we knew that we would see some increase. But, you know, our message to ohioans is, we can do this. We canring the economy back, you can go back to work. But its not normal time. We cant pretend like this isnt over with. This is not over with. Now, weve seen some encouraging things in the last week or so. We went to mask orders several weeks ago in what we call red es, which are level three. We have four levels. We think we started see some results. More and more people clearly are wearing mas. We know that for a fact. And we think that were startins some results. So what we hope is were entering a plateau,th an we hope, obviously, we would hope to start seeing these numbers come down. Ll and thats kind of our message. You wear the maskis together. To protect yourself, but mostly youre wearing that mask to protect other people. And you have, just ohio, which is somethiandate, you actually did back in april and then reversed yourself within 24 hours. Why is it gonna be different now . It was clear to me in ls than 24 hours that theres great pushback on that, that ohioans were not ready to accept that. And so we pulled back on it. Part of this is leading, but its also,ou know, youve got to be able to lead and keep people with you. But what has hapned since then, as you have pointed out, is our numbers are worse. I think people are a frankly, watching tv and seeing whats going on in florida, seeing whats going on in arizona and other states. Were seeing our numbers go up. O eve, over time, i think, changed the culture. People are accepting it more. That doesnt mean there arent a lot of people out there today that were very upset with me to take the mask orderat ide. I know there are. But i think theres more acceptance today and more possibility for people to actually do this, because, ultimately, it comes down to what people in ohio do. I can put all the orders you can ever think of. But it comes down to what people do andhe individual chois in their individual life. I mean, you have reived praise for issuing the mask order, but as you said, you have real detractors for your mask order, as well. Protestersarching outside of the ohio state capital. Governor, why has maskwearing become so political, in yourew im not really sure. I mean, it doesnt make any nse to me. You know, this is about science. Taking care of each other. And thats been my message that, look, were wearing the mask for each other. For a number of months weve had an order on that, you know, in busins, ifou go into a grocery sto today, you go into a drugstore, everybody there thats working there has to he a mask on. Thats been the order of the state. And what our messa has been p ple who patronize those stores is, look, you know, theyre wearing the sk for you. You need to wear the mask for them. You need to help them. You may have somebody who has to work, whos 70 years old, and he is doing something in that store hestocking shelves or she is cashier, stocking, ing something. It may be a 25yrold who has some medical pblems but who needs to work. And so we need to protect them. And we know so much more today about masks. At east i know a lot more than i knew four months ago. And the evidence is ju overwhelming. I mean, theres just no doubt about it, that masks or that added layer that you put that together with distance, and we are a lot safer because those masks so, the first time th week, President Trump actually tweeted that,. Many say wearing the mask is patriotic. And he clearly stated, again, for the first time, that masks, quote, have an impact do you think that that helps make it easier for you to institute this mandate in your state . Absolutely. Look, it makes a difference. The president has a lot of people who are following him, yoknow, and i was very delighted when i saw that. I id, this is this is very good thing. So, then, governor, is the fact that he didnt do it until then until now, is the inverse also true, that that made it harder for you to institutthat mask mandate back in april . Look, im not gonna blame the present for what we do or what we dont do in ohio. Thbuck stops with me. The buck stops with me in making these decisis. Would i have preferred him to do it earlier . Of course. Well, i think youre saying it wouldve helped you. El sure. I mean, look i mean, heres what were trying to do. Were trying to t everybody on board. And the president has the biggest megaphone of anybody ithe country. So its important. And the president tweeted that out this week that was that was very, very good news. Why do you think it took him so long . I dont know. I dont know. You know, thats i dont know that. Well, you also gave an address to your state last week, calling on ohioans to unite. Yotalked about how ohioans came together back in the beginning of the crisis and that you rose to the e casion and you answered the call, and you ar you said, quote, i am asking you now, once again unite. L of you to did you need to say thate becaioans were not united . W l, look, we were at a different point. Buits human nature, if we start back up, that, frankly, what some people seemed to hear was that, hey, you know, things are okay. And i think its human nature. Think human nature is that yoknow, we want to get out and get around. So, wh i was simply trying to do is say, look, were tough,ere strong. If we want a good fall if we want our kids to go back to school in th, if we want sports in the fall,ve if we want whayou want in the fall, if we want those things, what we do right now, right now, is going to make all the differce in the world. The one lesson from history, whher its 1918 pandemic se whether it is what wev with this virus inther countries is, you must act quickly. So, look, ohio has been in a relatively good potion. Weve never seen this go crazy in ohio. Weve never seen it out of control in ohio. Weve been able to keep it under control. So, what ohioans, i think, are looking at right now is, as i said, at a time wn we we could go either way, were at about 6 i dont know 6 to 6. 5 6. 5 positivity. Youve got other states are 18 , 20 . But you dont want ohio to become that u dont want ohio to be florida. And part of our part of our message was, we dont wantto we love our friends in florida. We dont want to become florida. Weve seen the agony at theyve gone through. And so that picture of whats going on in florida,is i thinfrankly, very helpful for me to be able to tell that story, that great tragedy when we look at that and say, look, we dont want to go down that pathway. But to stop that from happening, weve got to move quickly. The pandemic has also put a spotlight on the d about the role of the federal governmentol versus theof the states. And in 1967, william f. Buckley jr. , t who hosts program for 33 years, spoke to a newly inauguted Ronald Reagan, governor of califoia. Lets take a look at what he said. Do you think that 10, 20 years from now, the office of governor will be almost like the office of the lieutenant gove of the provinces in canada . Pretty much a rituale . A handshaking office . Well, theyre gonna have a fight with some governors think, with a lot of people. Governor, conservatives havee long a just like buckley and reagan did there, in favor of the principle of federali, letting states take control. And you even recently said that people turn to their governorscr in times ois. So what, then, is the role, governor, for the federal government in a pandemic . Well, i think theres some lsons out of this. When we all have a chance to sit back and not worry about whats happening every single day, we can come up with the lessons. But, you know, certainly one that comes to mind is that, you know, we have to invest in public health. At the state level. We have to do at the federal level. Ni have not historically done that in thed states. And i think thats one of the lessons. I think youre also seeing, though, you know, that governors historically are looked to when theres a flood,hen theres a natural disaster, when theres a tornado, when theres a hurricane, when someing it ithe governors who normally we look to. And so i think people normally do that. People. The closest to the so i think Ronald Reagan was right. Ve you know, ors still matter. They matter a lot. And were the ones who are closest to the problem. What the federal government can do, you know, is to be here to assist. Atyou know, one of things the public doesnt s or hear is, every week, at least once a week, the Vice President gets on the phone with governors. I think we had 47 goveors on the call several days ago. And i think people would be delighted if they could listen in to that, because theres no partisanship. It is just, hey, lets just go fix the problem. What do you need . What are you seeing . Wh in your state . And thats the great thing about our federal system, is, they are the 50 laboratories of democracy. And im on the phone a lot to my fellow governors and saying, hey how are you handling this . How are you handling that . And those exchange of eas are just very, very, very positive and very good. Weve heard you praise the Vice President , the White House Coronavirus task force, the cdc. Are you getting what you need from the federal government, look, you never get everything you want in life, you know . You know, you never get but theyve been as responsive as they can be. They have to priorize where the bigger problem is. Thank heavens, in ohio, we have not led that list throughout this, and i dont intend to let us lead that list. So, you know, ey are being and its it is,ct, a partnership. But, no, you dont get everything you want. Again, ill go back to what iag said a momen one of the lessons is, we have to invest in plic health, and we have to do it at the state level, at the local level, and we havto do it cerinly at the federal level. And i hope thats one of t ssons that comes out of this. The other lesson i hope arat people realize and i think bothes know this now, and that is we cannot be dependent on china. D we cannot endent on other countries to make everything that we use for medicine or all the equipment that we use. Governor, i mean, s ebody who has relied on your publichealth experts and who sa we need to really invest more in public health, how did the attacks the ite house attacks against dr. Fauci strike you . Well, i dont pay a lot of attention to it. I mean, the doctors still out there and still talking, and people are listening to the doctor, so i you know, thats. I cant explain it to you. I nt know whats going on. And, you kno again, we nced to look to medical sc we need to look to professionals how we handle that, everything. This is what we tried to do in oo, base everything that we doing on the best information that we could get at the time. Your economy has really taken a hit from covid. Employment was over 13 in may. It came down a bit in june to 10. 9 . Would you like to see an extension of the federal Unemployment Benefits om the 600 a week paychecks, even though conservatives argueh that amount may be a disincentive for people to go back to work . Y what wou like to see . Well, i think rob portman had a good idea. Rob came up th kind of a compromise where people, you know, it would help get them back to work. They would still get some of the money even if they wt back to rk. So i think rob has a very, chry good idea. I dont know whace he has of getting it passed, but it seems to me theres a sweet spot in there that will work very well. And whaabout as you look at the state, things that could make ohio more competitiveng cout of covid . Have you given any thought, governor, to using the quote unquote, emergency laws provision in the ohio state constitution to pass righttowork legislation . Righttowork, of course,ul is a law that keep workers from being forced to pay union dues. Er as you know, s of the states in the midwest around you have passed righttowork laws in recents, yeaking them more competitive, and ohio has not. Lo would yo at using the emergency laws provision to pass righttowork . No. Look, we have good Labor Relations beeen employers and labor in the state of ohio. Ive never thought it was e ential part of moving ohio forward. Were veryompetitive today. Ve were doin well. You know, weve all been hit by the virus. T m an optimist. My wife says anybody with eight htds a friend i have, e kids. Anybody with eight kids is an optimist. So im an optimist. I see a great future for the state of ohio. Youecently told ohioa i want to read you the quote. We must act now. My friends, this is not a drill. This is certainly not hoax. It seems to me that you need to say that because people believe th covid19, on some leve is a hoax. Who thinks its a hoax, governor . E well, think had a couple legislators that seemed to indicate that it mighbe. But, look, ohio is ndifferent than other states. We do have some people that dont think that this is as serireat. And i do think its a serious threa i think that if you only want to focus on jobs and our economy, even if you could totall discount human life, that you still need to get control of this pandemic. Because the biggesthreat to jobs in ohio, moving forward as nomy, is if this virus gets outio of control in and it wont matter if that happens, it wont matter what i order, what i dont order, because people wont go out. They wont spendoney. They will hunker down. And so thats why we have partnered with business in ohio, because business understands weve got to keep this virus down. If we ke it down, the economy can come back. These two are tied right together. Youre going to try to keep it down through the fall. Youre going to try to keep it down in the immediacy, in the near future. But into the fall, Something Else happens. Thats the electn in november. And youve postponed the ohio primary and held in almost allmailin ballot primary. And youre prepared to do the same thing in november. Co are yoident that the mailin voting will be secure in your state . Well, you know, our viewers across the country dont know ts, but ohioans know this. We have a lot of experience in doing this. So ware not concerned that this is going to cause any kind of you know, that the election wont go well or that therell be a greatf dealaud. We do this all the time. We know how to do it. Tre are some claims by th president that mailin voting is corrupt and horrible. Those are quotes. Youre confident that it wont be corpt, and it will be secure in your state. You disagree with the president on that . I mean, i cant speak to other states. Doing it for the first time, i dont know. Ohio, we can do it well,l and run a good election. And President Trump won ohio, as you know, by 8 points. And as you also know, for republicans, all roads lead through ohio. S no republican n the presidency without winning the state of ohio. Yet when you look at most of the polling now that polls ohio, President Trumpjo is trailbiden or, in some polls, neck and neck. Is ohio going toecome a battleground state this year . Well, i think ohio is almost always a battleground state. I mean, you ow, President Trump pulled away certainly in the last election, winning ohio by a big margin that i dont think anybody predicted. But ohio is always competitive, and its going to remain competitive. So, you know, i think the president could carry ohio. I think will carry ohio, but its going to be a close race. Let me ask you real quickly about the major Corruption Case that has been brought to light in your state. Of course, its spear of the house Larry Householder and several of his associates who were arrested this week department of justice described as, quote, likely the largest bribery moneylaundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of ohio. What was your reaction when you heard these bribery allegations that involve prominent members of the Ohio Republican party . Well, its always, you know, very alarming and very sad when a speaker of the house is charged. So, yeah, its its a very disturbing thi. And we have to say that we have to assume theyreged, innocent. Thats what the assumption of the law is. But that story that was dcribed by the Justice Department is a very sad, sad story and should infuriate every ohioan. And, governor, are you confent that no one in your office was involved . Well, imonfident no one in my office was involved. We didnt know abt this investigation at all until yesterday morning when it became public. D the u. S. Attorney was asked twice yesterday in the News Conference whether or not this involvedve the ors office. The answer is no. The criminal complaint, eges that, a that speaker householder and his associates received more than 60 million in secret payments from the Energy Company in change for helping to pass this piece of bailout legislation, that wasalled house bill 6. You signed, of course, house bill 6. In hindsight, that has cost the taxpayershing of your state so much . No. I mean, thessue is the merits of it. My position in ohio has been, when i ran for office and after i became governor, is that we need a balanced energyli. Nuclear power plants provide a lot of jobs in ohio, but they also provide virtually all or almost all of our carbonfree energy. If we elimate our two Nuclear Power plants iohio, we would have virtually no carbonfree energy at all. N we wou have any kind of balanced plan. And the meritsf the bill, its someing that i supported and continue to support. Then the merits of the billth ar the taxpayers in the state of ohio have to carrthe extra cost of the nuclear well, that was fully well, that was fully wown. That was fully well known and debated. And the truth is that we cannot have, at least today, noncarbon Energy Without subsidy. Ev y kind, whether its wind, whatever it is, it is all subsidized. E estion is, are we going to keep these power plants that are providing noncarbon energy in the state of ohio . And the answer is, i believe that we should. But those issues were all publicly debated. What was not public was what was going on behind the scenes and the fact that 60 million was being poured in for lord knows what all reasons. As but does not impugn the that youre trying to make . Right . Now taxpayers come tofi out that theyre paying a subsidy to something in which there was corruption. No i havroblem if this legislature wants to revote this, wants to take a look at it, wants to have a debate. Think that is fine. You know, im always open to debates and for people to look at what it is sad. Erits of issues are. It is a tredy that a public debate about an issue is taied by, you know, what a handful of people did. D s disgusting. Ive been thinking a lot about this. On thursday, the 23rd, the day after we recorded our interview, governor dewine changed his mind. He is now calling for house bill 6 to be repealed and no matter how good this policy is, the process th process by which this bill was passed is simply not acceptable. One more question. You and your wife, fran, have 8 children, but i also know you have 24 grandchildren. With ohio going in tng direction and the new facemask order in place, whats gonna make you comfortable sendingra yourchildren back to school in the fall . Weve got a f weeks. And i made this very clear to my fellow ohioans,e what we do in xt several weeks is gonna determine what we can do in the fall. K we donw yet. We dont know exactly where were going to go. You know, you saw what the American Pediatrics Association came out with. They basically said, l. Ook, kids are suffering not being in sch we got tryo get them back in school. We agree with that. We agree that we need get kids back. We also agree scat what we saw in the past when we shut dowols was some of the poorest kids and kids who didnt have access the iernet, didnt get the education that they should have got orth some other kids in the state got. Downsides to remote education, a lot of downsides not having kids in class. But we also know that there areu dangerthere. So weve got to try to balance those. In your press conference was the director of the cdc, dr. Dfield, who said, if everyone would wear masks for four to six weeks,qu we coulde, drive this epidemic to the ground. F is that the ca ohio . With your facemask order, will you end coronavirus, or will you seriously curtail coronavirus for your state . Wed knock it in the head pretty good. Wed take it to its knees if we could do that. We get 85 of the people Wearing Masks every single day and keeping the social distance, yeah, pretty basic what we have to do. Its not complicated what we haveo do. So if we can do this, these numbers are gonna look very different in the fall. Ve its gonna loo different. Governor, we wish you the best of luck. Thank you very much for your time and for coming to firing line. Thank you. Ov firing line wi margaret hoer is made possible in part by. And by. Corporate funding isrovided by. Youre watching pbs. Hello, everyone, and welcome to amanpour co. Heres whats coming up. As protests continue to shape the united states, the n entire Justice System is trial. We talked to a trailblazing e juout how jails are being filled by criminalizing the mentally ill. T we needo demand true equality. We ar forward. Move history mrs. America. I speak to her about the new series on the 1970 womens liberation movement. Then thats one of the things im concerned about this november is aat some of the states th mail also have traditions in rejecting a lot of mailin ballots