I'm Dave Rubin and joining me today is a visiting professor of political science at Vanderbilt

University, the former two-term governor of Tennessee and author of the new book Faithful

Presence, The Promise and Peral of Faith in the Public Square.

Governor Bill Haslam, welcome to the Rubin Report.

Well, thanks for having me. It's good to be with you and your viewers.

Well, I'm glad to have you on because we get sent in awful lot of books. We get sent

in awful lot of pitches and I can't have everybody on, but I wanted to do this because I thought

what you're talking about in this book. The blend of politics and faith is particularly

interesting. I found it interesting at a personal level just because of my own sort of political

and spiritual evolution and that sort of will be the framework of where we start here.

First, you're in Tennessee now. I was there a few weeks ago. They're doing something

right in Tennessee. I know you're not the governor anymore, but you must be happy with

the state of the state, right?

You know, our founders kind of have this great idea. Let the states be laboratories of

democracy. Let them all do it their own way. I think states like Tennessee have chosen

to be lower tax and encouraging business growth. I think you're seeing the result of

that people get to choose where they live. We have a lot more inflow than we do out

ago these days. I'll put it that way.

Before we get into the specifics of the book, do you miss being in government right now?

You know, you do. Listen, being in government is such a great chance to make it different.

I don't want to say I'm corny, but it's a great way to help change the trajectory of people's

lives. I do miss that, but I'm also somebody that I kind of believe in the whole term limit

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