Christine Todd Whitman: It is with an eagerness to tackle the challenges ahead that I take the oath of office as New Jersey's 50th Chief Executive and its first woman governor.

Tanzina Vega: That is former Garden State Governor Christine Todd Whitman at her 1994 inaugural address. She was the first and still only woman elected to serve as governor of New Jersey. She resigned as governor in 2001 to become the EPA Administrator during the presidency of George W. Bush. This came just a few months after she was embroiled in scandal over a photo showing her frisking a Black man during a ride along with Camden Police back in 1996.

Accused of racial profiling, she ultimately conceded she should have thought twice about that moment. As New York prepares to welcome Kathy Hochul as their next governor, after the resignation of Andrew Cuomo due to accusations of sexual harassment, Governor Whitman joined me to discuss this unique moment and what it's like to govern after scandal. She began by giving her reaction to New York Attorney General Letitia James' report detailing allegations of sexual harassment against Cuomo.

Christine Todd Whitman: Well, it was devastating, and you'd heard all these accusations and they'd been enough of them to suspect that this was real, what was going on was real. I thought his statement was less than forthcoming. He was trying to blame it on the fact that society had changed and he wasn't keeping up with it. He's younger than I am, and that behavior was not acceptable at any time. It was not a real mea culpa or apology, but that report was a devastating report, and it was backed up by fact.

Tanzina Vega: Part of what this moment means, in addition to the end of the governorship for Andrew Cuomo, is that in just a few short weeks, New York is going to have its first woman serve as governor. You, of course, were the first and still only woman to serve as governor of New Jersey. I'm wondering if you have, maybe not words of advice per se, but perspective, a way of thinking about what this moment might mean.

Christine Todd Whitman: Well, frankly, you don't think of it as a moment of you being the first woman. You think you're taking over the job of being a governor, and that's really what it's all about and what your focus is. Yes, clearly you are a role model, but again, you don't run for office with the idea of being a role model. It's what you are. Obviously, if you're the first on anything or if you're in a high position, people look to you and model, watch you very carefully, and some model their behavior on your behavior.

I suspect right now, the Lieutenant Governor has spent a lot of time getting to know the state going around. She's from Buffalo, but she's traveled to every county in New York. She's been part of New York political scene for really her entire career. She is obviously, a very capable person. She's someone who seems to be able to work across the aisle. She's politically savvy enough and has clearly been in touch enough to have a good handle of what she's going to have to do and the challenges she's facing.

Tanzina Vega: Now, clearly New York's soon-to-be governor is a Democrat, you are a Republican. I'm wondering if you think that women govern differently in any discernible or important ways and maybe less in the legislative positions where we so frequently see women as leaders, as senators, members of Congress, members of state legislators, but we have not had very many women serve as governor. I'm wondering if there are ways that in those executive positions women, regardless of ideology or party, may govern differently.

Christine Todd Whitman: I think absolutely. Again, once you start making generalizations, you can always find the exceptions. I have found, and it's true in Congress, too, by the way, that women tend to be more collegial. I found, as governor, that by being a female governor, I empowered the female members of the legislature and we prioritize differently. I used to say, if you gave a woman the difference, spending money on a halfway house for kids or fixing a bridge, well, you perfectly well understand the importance of fixing the bridge. You tend to go the personal part first. You'd go for the halfway house for kids and still find the money to do the bridge.

We tend on people. We prioritize differently. We approach problem-solving differently. We do, it's something you see around the world actually. You see at corporations, too. When you put women on boards, when you have women CEOs that things are handled in a different way. It's important to get that diversity. I think it's way past time for New York. It's way past time for New Jersey to have another woman governor, and frankly, every state should have done it. There's no reason why not. Women are entirely capable of handling these positions. Sometimes, some of what they bring in their way of approaching issues is very helpful to getting problems solved.

Tanzina Vega: Why is it that women have had such difficulty becoming governors? Is this in part due to political parties that maybe don't recognize and back the talent of potential executives when they're women in ways that they might acknowledge, recognize, and back that power with their men who are candidates?

Christine Todd Whitman: Well, part of it is definitely that. You tend to do things with people with whom you relate the most and men relate to men, and men have controlled the political system for a long time. I've seen many instances where a party will put a woman forward, but tend to put them forward in districts or senate races where they don't think they can win. They just want to show, see, I'm a good person, I'm a good party. We have women candidates, but they don't support them.

We've had a couple of egregious cases here in New Jersey where, fortunately, not the Republicans but the Democrat party that have just walked-- well, no, it happened to the Republicans, too. They've just walked away from their candidate. Their gubernatorial candidate. They'd made deals, I guess across the aisle, the men, and they just walked away and let the women flounder. In fact, when I ran for the Senate in 1990 against Bill Bradley, that was essentially the thinking behind the party because he was so popular. He'd won for his first reelection by 16 percentage points that they didn't think I'd come anywhere near.

In fact, the Republican Senate campaign committee took away the money at the very end that they had promised me, which was our only advertising budget that we had, because they said there were other challenger candidates who could do better. It turned out I did the best of any of the challengers, but I didn't win. We see that happening over and over again. That's where a big mistake is made. Women are better than 50% of the voters. My husband always said, "What's the matter with women? Why don't they vote for women? You could control the world if you did."

I've always maintained, yes, that's true, but I think one of the things that holds us back and we are more critical of women because we relate to them more directly, and if they mess up, then we mess up. It's a reflection on us. I don't know if that's true, but that's my theory of it.

Tanzina Vega: Let me ask a difficult question that on exactly that point, during the years that you served as governor in New Jersey, you had many particularly exceptional what we would think of now as green accomplishments or environmental accomplishments, things that so many other governors were not even trying to do at the time that made a big difference in that state. At the same time, you had some very real challenges in public around issues of race and racism. Was it fair to adjudicate both in the moment and as we look back on your time as governor, those governing accomplishments alongside those concerns about race and racial inequality?

Christine Todd Whitman: It's all part of the record, and it all has to be. It's out there, it is what it is. The thing of one things I would say on the racial issue was the way we got dinged really was for profiling. Frankly, that had been going on with the state police long before I came into office. We were the ones who stepped up and said, "Yes, in fact, it's happening," and welcomed the federal government in to help oversee and did a very thorough look at it, besides appointing more people of color to positions of power than any previous governor.

That's the record. It is what it is. People interpret it in different ways. I will stand up with it and behind it because I think we did a good job. Did I do a stupid thing in Camden when I went with the state police? Yes, but that's the only time-- Well, there was one other time when I repeated something that had been told to me by an African-American describing behavior of his nephews. Apparently, they were his nephews, he said, and I repeated that and I probably shouldn't have. Beyond that, it's all part of the record and you have to take responsibility for it. You take the good with the bad, you shouldn't duck it. You shouldn't try to hide it. You just have everything out there and say, you have to be the judge of the overall record.

Tanzina Vega: As I listen to you talk and think about those years, the good, the bad, the difficult, the triumphant. I'm just sort of--

Christine Todd Whitman: [crosstalk] The ugly, it has to be the [crosstalk].

Tanzina Vega: All of that. I'm wondering, just as you look at the broad landscape nationally of our politics, if you are surprised at how divided we are as a nation, whether it is in our federal government or in our states. New Jersey was a place that could elect a Democrat or a Republican as governor, usually pretty close to one another. The same used to be true, for example in North Carolina. It's still a little bit true in North Carolina where I live, but overwhelmingly that is becoming not true. States are all blue or all red. Is that surprising to you?

Christine Todd Whitman: It's disappointing. Is what it is. You could see it starting to happen. Even long before I became governor, we started these divides back in '64 with Goldwater. I can remember that one. I was old enough to be fairly active working for Rockefeller and then Scranton. We started to see it and it is what it is, is enormously troubling to me for the future of democracy because we're getting to that place where people can't and won't talk to one another. They don't listen, they don't try to acknowledge that someone who might hold a different opinion may have very valid reasons for holding that opinion.

You need to talk it through and say, "Okay, but this is why I feel the way I do." Rather than say, "Okay, you don't agree with me, you're my enemy." We see so much of this happening now that it's getting down to the point where if you lose an election, it's because of fraud. There can be no other reason. You start to undermine the public's confidence in our political system and in our rule of law and in our elections. That's a very dangerous place for us to be as a democracy.

Tanzina Vega: Christine Todd Whitman, New Jersey's first and, for now, only woman to serve as governor. Thank you for renewing some of my faith today, and the capacity to have bipartisan conversations to reflect on our history collectively and to really care about our democracy. Thank you for joining us.

Christine Todd Whitman: Well, my pleasure and good to talk to you.

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