the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the world. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. the c-span bus is outside the capitol building in boise, idaho. joining us to talk about the thees facing id idaho, is governor. he is in his third term. governor, thank you for being here. i want to start by talking about an issue that is forefront here in washington, and that is trade issues and potential trade disputes. how does that affect idaho? is -- if we can tradeout all the agreements and get the enforcement we anticipated when we negotiated, whether it was nafta or the other trade agreements, the agreement itself

is a pretty good idea. it is a good deal. unfortunately, especially in the last 10 years, we have not been in forcing that agreement. so whether or not the administration is going to scrap the whole deal, i am not too concerned about losing trade, especially from a state like idaho where we export about $5 billion worth of everything from computer chips to potato chips. i think the quality of the merchandise, the sustainability of the supply is what any customer will want, whether it is in china or new york city or wherever. i think we can be competitive. >> for some anyway as experienced experience in washington and as a governor, do you think the tariff talk will actually happen, or is it more

threat than otherwise? mindsannot get into the -- i have been out of washington, d.c. for the 12 years i have been governor of idaho. but the six years i spent there, there is a lot of rattling going on, especially when you come to grips with a tremendous issue. trade is a term in this issue. -- able to be order settle into your position relatively comfortably, there is probably rattling going on there. >> i want to talk about health care. you cannot with a proposal that got hit with all sides, including fellow republicans. what was your health care proposal, and why was it not supported more fully? >> the republicans that were against it were probably more upset because it was not their idea, peter. it was a great opportunity for

two 2009,et from 2018 where we had the least expensive, best coverage insurance market in the united the wholed in fact, world. when obamacare came along, it throughout all the disciplines we had and throughout all of the metrics that we had. .e saved our vendors we have a lot of competition in the idaho insurance market, whereas some states have maybe just one vendor. some counties in some of these states have none. we are going to continue to pursue negotiations and discussions with hhs and the folks in washington, d.c. to see if we can't come to some agreement on allowing these non-obamacare qualified plans to go forth and idaho.

getof the problems, once we these nonqualified plans ,ertified by washington, d.c. then you will see a lot of other states jumping on the same thing. host: you talk about nonqualified plans, would it be fair to say the state was offering health care plans that were stripped down in a sense? stripped down from what? why do i need maternity care? look at me. products andlot of ingredients in obamacare insurance policies that you had to bite whether you needed them or not. that was the idea of enlarging the pool with sufficient numbers so that you can have a fiduciary ily stable product.

once that one out the window, we had 70,000 people drop insurance in idaho as a result of getting what are the mandate. that is why we wanted to offer some of these -- you called them stripped down plans, i would say whatallows a buyer to buy they want, not what the government wants to sell. host: why did the republican state legislature not pass this? up in agot all caught couple of the waivers that i had asked for of what i wanted to do . in our state insurance exchange and in the insurance market in 2008 hundrede folks that for the highest cost. those folks were costing us $200 million a year in order to

supply them with health care. 2800 folks that were the highest cost. those folks were costing us $20 million a year in order to supply them with health care. that caused suspicion. we were expanding medicaid. we have not expanded medicare -- medicaid under obamacare. in theseleg up opportunities and we were trying to fashion an insurance market that the people of idaho want instead of what the federal government wants to sell them. i think a lot of those folks weren't looking, and that is not unusual, for that crowd in idaho to do that. host: the governor is currently in his third term. he is our guest until the top of the hour. if you would like to participate in the conversation today, (202)

748-8000. if you're in idaho residents, and all others around the .ountry, (202) 748-8001 when you first came up, you talked about the economy of idaho, and you talked about semiconductors. there is a large company in idaho, homegrown, what is that? wasicron technology actually started by a couple of , who ironically enough come out of the same region of , the that farnsworth did guy that invented the television tube that you and i enjoyed a certain amount of exposure to write now. these two brothers -- right now. these two brothers decided to come back home and start their own company. their first product was a 4 megtted chip -- fo

chip. they found a few other idaho guys, my boss, was one of the folks who got included in that. there were other folks. it started out in a very humble and very small way, and then grew into a worldwide giants that had the leading edge on innovation and technology -- worldwide edge that had the leading edge on technology and innovation. companies wantn to compete. a lot of corporate and industrial espionage went on and they started stealing products from us -- micron technology. that got them into lawsuits. , that company has

always had great leadership and great support from the community here in idaho. it has had great success worldwide. they are one of our big leaders in exports. tech has that led to more is coming into boise? >> oh my, yes. not only that, it has led to a lot of great talent that has secured a place and a permanent place of retirement opportunity in idaho. they come to work as a young engineer fresh out of the university, micron technology has been interdimensional -- a major building on the boise state university campus. it is just three blocks from the blue turf. they have homegrown their own. we are growing a lot of

high-tech engineers right here in the valley. the company's that we have our big companies that at one time software software companies. host: the gross state product of idaho is 65 billion dollars a year and one of the fastest-growing states, and a large growing hispanic community , correct? >> let me correct you on the first one. that is, we are the fastest-growing state in the nation, not only growth in terms of a population, but growth in terms of personal income. we are probably in the top two .r three in employment our unemployment is right at 3%, which means we have roughly out of 84,000 people,

we have 24,000 people out of work. but we have a lot of jobs we cannot fill. host: 3% unemployment rate in idaho. (202) 748-8000 for those of you in idaho. .utside of idaho (202) 748-8001 the state legislature recently wrapped up its business, and one of the issues they looked at was stand your ground allows. what happened? bille stand your ground became law without my signature. there are some problems in it. when i weigh legislation, how much good and bad, and then what if i decidessage,

not to sign and let it become law, what kind of a message can i send back to the legislature asking them to take another look next year and maybe improve it a little bit? that is exactly what i did. it become law without my signature. it says you can protect your person, your family, and your property. you don't need to back off. it will work in idaho. like i said, there could be a little improvement, and i hope the legislature will come back next year under another governor and maybe another legislature, because the legislature is up for election in may in the primary and november in the general. host: what are your thoughts about school safety issues and arming security guards? in idaho, we have had security guards. we have had resource officers which are local police folks in

our schools. we have had armed folks in the schools, usually as a resource officer if a child needs -- a student needs to talk to an official about some problem at home or in the neighborhood or being bullied or something like that, then they have an official and a law enforcement figure they can talk to. grow up with guns, and we have great respect for guns. a home wherek of there probably isn't a gun, and there may well be, that generally, you will find a great respect for the old adage, when i was very, very young, and the same with my eight brothers and sisters, there is never an unloaded gun. you always have to be very

careful when you use it and how you use it. if we were to arm folks in the schools, the janitors and teachers, and they wanted to volunteer, then i think we would put them through substantial training. host: some of the issues we have talked to the governor about, include taxes, stand your ground laws, and health care. anthony in hyattsville, maryland, here is your chance to talk to a governor. the question i asked is of 24,000 unemployed in the estate, but you have jobs that can't be filled what are you doing to pair up the unemployed with those jobs or do a nationwide search to get them filled? guest: great job tell larry

hogan hello for me. what we have done is created to community colleges. one got a lot of national attention, which he created in 2009 and open the doors with 1500 students. today, there are more like 30,000 students attending that school. the fastest-growing community college in the history of the united states of america. just this last fall, we created another college in eastern idaho. whichf those institutions would give us for community college in the state of idaho. what we are asking is for those companies that need particularly -- particular employees with skills or talents to go to those colleges and help them set up a learning experience in order to get them trained. a couple of years ago, i went back to night school at the college of western idaho that was created