Governor Murphy once again played host of the national Governors association annual meeting in Atlantic City today the last day of the event and of Murphy's term as chair the bipartisan group rotates between Democratic and Republican leadership Murphy used the event yesterday to unveil his strategy to address youth mental health issues across the country and to release first lady Tammy Murphy's maternal and infant Health Initiative aimed at reducing the significant number of pregnancy-related deaths in New Jersey and the nation but today saw a much different Focus senior political correspondent David Cruz is in Atlantic City with more on the priorities that will Now guide the national Governors Association on the final day of the national Governors Association Summer Conference New Jersey governor Phil Murphy passed the gavel on to Utah Governor Spencer Cox let's hear for our chair thank you congratulations Cox a 49 year old Republican heading into an election year presented his initiative something expected of all the incoming chairpersons for the coming year it's called disagree better with the goal of finding a way for us to bridge the harsh discourse of the day in the interest of preserving democracy that the course that we are on right now as Americans is unsustainable in an increasingly fragile democracy that we can't long remain a United States if this continues that's something most of us could probably get behind but where Murphy's initiative addressing youth mental health had a clear goal of increasing services and opportunities for kids to deal with the mental issues they're facing promoting civility especially in the heated rhetorical landscape of America in 2023 is a little harder to achieve or at least measure measure the success of an initiative that says disagree better sure yeah and that's something we're working on again I want to be very clear this is not just kind of a warm and fuzzy initiative there's actually science behind what we're what we're attempting to do we're working with uh with several universities across the country we we've had lots of conversations with the the policy Labs at uh at both Stanford University and Dartmouth and and others um Duke has a group that's working in this depolarization space as well and uh there are groups out there that are measuring this this work coxon is vice chair Colorado governor Jared Polis unveiled the video they plan to distribute nationally as part of the initiative opinions you know you're right and the other side is a bunch of misguided weirdos but there's a healthy way to deal with conflicting opinions actually it's okay to disagree it's not just okay it's crucial did you just disagree with me about disagreeing healthy disagreement means not assuming that the other side is deluded misinformed or actively trying trying to overthrow America the video like the one that that uh that Jared and I did was actually very effective in lowering the animosity that people felt towards the other party when they when they saw two members of different parties together this organization almost uniquely stands and so the notion of disagreeing better I'm not sure if there's any other organization right now in America that could sponsor that other than the national Governors Association it's going to be Fabulous As for Murphy who's term ended this morning he was asked what's next for the now former chair of the national Governors Association a thousand percent behind the president and we'll leave it at that yeah I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow uh uh water park this afternoon there was a time when this conference was seen as a potential coming out party for Murphy as a presidential candidate with those hopes now dashed Murphy had to settle for being a good host in that regard it seemed by most accounts it was mission accomplished I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight News NJ Spotlight News