What is your current timeline and how confident are you that once things start to open up, you will not have to have a pullback . Governor whitmer we have to be nibble enough to be able to enough to bele able to measure and acknowledge, every time you open up a different sector of the economy, you run the risk of having a spike. We have to watch with the testing of the tracing and we have to have all of that mechanism. If we have to pull back, what we want to avoid is a second spike. I think that is what every governor who is listening to their epidemiologist and Health Care Experts are saying the same thing. We have to be looking at this as a dial, not a switch, not on and off, but as a dial that we can increase or decrease if necessary. Right now in michigan, we have the strictest stay home, stay safe policy in the nation. Last week i loosened it a little bit. This week i am going to lay out the criteria with which we are assessing the inherent risks of a particular sector of our economy, the protocol necessary to bring down that risk. And to start to move the dial a little bit. As we continue to ramp up on the testing and tracing components. When you talk about dial, i understand what youre saying and it makes sense to me, but the wording that you use is reopen, so i think people are ready to break free after being in quarantine. How do you make sure that michigan or snow that we that michiganers know that if issues arise, is the public ready for that . Gov. Whitmer i think consistently explained, i am paying close attention, you are paying close attention, and certainly there are a lot of people who are home or watching the news. But some who are not. I dont want to make any assumption that people understand the threat of the second spike and what that would mean. I can confidently say while we are not unanimous on a lot of things, i hope and i believe we dont want to be in a second stay home, stay safe posture because we have a lot of people dying and our Health Care System is at the rink again. Brink again. We dont want that to happen. But we all have to understand the necessity of mindful datadriven engagement as we build up the Public Health side as well. Governor, you said you are going to lay out the data from which you are making these decisions. I wonder if you could preview how you are going to explain in the short order different sectors of the economy and the propriety of loosening some of those restrictions. Gov. Whitmer i have a couple of groups i have been working with that i am fortunate, i think every state has some wonderful leaders on the medical site as well as on the business side. We have reached out and organized a couple of different recovery councils. One of course is made up of our finest health care leaders, from detroit, from the university of michigan, helping us to score risk, and Business Leaders who have a footprint, a global footprint. We have a lot of businesses in michigan that have footprints across the globe and have gone through this, whether it is in italy or in china. We have Business Leaders in michigan that have that experience. So we are building a lot of the work around assessing risk in different sectors of our economy. I will be talking a bit about that today with leaders from both of those groups in my press conference this afternoon, and i would anticipate in the coming days of our trajectory of hospitalizations as it continues to go down and our ability to test continues to go up, that we will go into the next low risk category, and that might include some construction, it might include some additional Outdoor Enterprise centers that are currently forbidden from proceeding. These are a couple of the areas that i think would be the lowest risk areas that we might start to engage. We also have to look regionally. Different parts of our state do not have covid19 pressure the way that other parts do. They also dont have the kind of hospitals, able to if a spike happened. All of these factors go into the inherent risk, and that is what will be driving decisions of who comes online when. Anna there have obviously been protests in michigan reported on and in other states with folks frustrated, having to shelterinplace and other restrictions put out there. You recently said ease some of those restrictions and it sounds like you are maybe going to be picking some other steps later this week. How do you respond to critics who say you went too far . Are you concerned about political repercussions that could come from this frustration . Gov. Whitmer no, im not. I am making decisions based on the best policy is to save lives. That is all that is driving these decisions. We have got to slowly and smartly reengage sections of our economy, but everything i have done has been about saving lives. Rankly, michigan had a uniquely tough experience with covid19. We are the 10th most populous state in the country, and we have the third highest number of positive covid19 cases and the third highest rate of deaths. That is precisely why it was important for us to take the most aggressive steps in the nation. The thing about Public Health is that i have come to appreciate when it is going well. You cannot quantify how many lives you have saved. A politics of that, the politics of that, not thinking about any of that, all i am focused on is saving lives, and i think we have done a lot of good work. It has not been easy. People have made sacrifices. When over 3000 people in michigan have died from covid19, we have learned that this is something that could continue to spread if we were not as aggressive, and that is why it is so important that we are. Jake i assume you are not on Mitch Mcconnells page in saying that people should file for bankruptcy. Gov. Whitmer yes. Jake larry hogan told us he will have a 2 billion shortfall just by june or july. How much money will michigan need to make sure that the state is not is on a sure financial footing in the immediate and longterm . Gov. Whitmer one of the things i appreciate about larry as the head of the National Governors association, as well as my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, we are doing everything we can to save lives in our state. Covid19 was not brought upon because any of us or how we manage, it was brought on as a global pandemic. Many americans have lost their lives because of covid 19. Our economies are suffering because of covid19. For any officeholders to suggest that states should declare bankruptcy is absolutely the height of your responsibility. Irresposibility. We are probably at about 3 billion here this year and maybe 4 billion year depending on how the next few months look. It is not because of anything other than covid19. We have the lowest amount of money adjusted for inflation in michigan since the nixon administration. Jake wow. Gov. Whitmer we need assistance. This is a unique time. We all have to pitch in and get this country back on track, and it is not through declaring bankruptcy, it is stepping up and giving support where it is needed. Jake you are a student observer astute observer of politics. You watch congress. When you see, when you read the body language, when you talk to yuri delegation, are you confident that you will get what you need from the federal government . Gov. Whitmer i am not going to take anything for granted. We have great leaders in the michigan delegation that have been really helpful throughout this process. We need as state leaders the flexibility to prioritize how we are spending these dollars. We have got students who have been out of school for a long time and we are working incredibly hard to meet their needs. Our students are going to need additional wraparound support as we think about reengaging in the traditional sense in the fall. Hopefully we can do that. But as we know, even from the federal government, we are hearing that we are going to still have to be in a very conservative posture when it comes to covid19, avoiding the second wave in the fall. We know there is going to be an incredible amount of need, and the federal government and the State Government have to work together. Anna you are a democratic governor in a swing state who has an increasingly highprofile. The president has repeatedly taken shots at you. How have you found handling his criticism and working with the administration . Gov. Whitmer President Trump won in michigan in 2016. I won in 2018 by almost 10 points. I never once talked about the president when i was running for governor. I think people in michigan simply we are good hardworking people, expect our government to be as hardworking and as good as we are. My focus has always been on trying to get help for the people of my state. That is why when these slights come my way, i dont engage, i dont throw it right back. I dont return fire. I just try to stay focused on the things that i need to do to get michigan the help that we need to do that. Jake who have you found it useful to work with in this administration . Mike pence is the governor, the president s soninlaw . Who have you found it most hopeful to work with . Gov. Whitmer the Vice President has been excess of a cordial. Accesssible. Accessible. I think having been a governor has been accessible, always cordial. I think having been a governor i found the head of fema to be great partners as well. Hhs, the army corps of engineers. We have had a very good working relationship with our federal counterparts, so i think that is something that is really important, that sometimes it is hard to focus on when it appears otherwise from other vantage points. Anna one political issue that has arisen was around the hiring of a firm serving residents for the coronavirus. You canceled that contract, and on friday the names of individuals were released that were at that firm. Are you concerned about michiganers wondering about who is in play, or if they are caring about this when they are word about their lives . Worried about their lives . Gov. Whitmer our department of health and Human Services it is a department of hardworking public servants. These are not clinical people. They dont have a political bone in the collective body. They were making a decision on a vendor, who they thought would be over the Contact Tracing. They made a decision that it really should have gone through the state of Emergency Operations center. When it came to my attention that this selection has been made, i cannot do it it immediately. Not because the firm could not do the job or not because i have had the ability to ascertain every proposal that was sent to the state. I just know that this has been an unnecessary distraction, and we cannot have that. The Contact Tracing is an incredibly important part of our ability to identify where covid19 exists, how we continue to isolate the right people so that we do not have a second way. We cannot afford any unnecessary distractions, and that is why i canceled the contract. As we move forward, everything will go through the appropriate process at the state of Emergency Operations center. Jake some people have mentioned you as a potential Vice President ial candidate. You probably will be asked this every day for the next couple of months. Describe your discussions with the Biden Campaign and what kind of documentation you provided them so far. Gov. Whitmer i havent provided anything. As of this conversation, i have provided something. I have had a Good Relationship with the Vice President. He came and helped me when i was running for governor. We are cut from a similar cloth. He loves people. He is regularly checking in with me about what is going on in michigan, what do we need. I have gotten some counsel from him in terms of trying to communicate to people, whether it is the seriousness of it and the hope that we need to have, but also trying to connect in a way that people understand that we are trying to solve problems. This has been a sacrifice, but we are going to get through this. His counsel and friendship, and the way he has had michigans back over the years is precisely why he resonates with people here. It is why i endorsed him before the perm or a played out in michigan, and i am grateful before the primary played out in michigan, and i am grateful for his friendship. That is all the energy i have that has gone into that effort. Anna there has been a lot of discussion in democratic circles not only about should there be the candidate be a woman, but does it need to be a woman of color. Where do you come out on that . Gov. Whitmer i think there are some phenomenal Women Leaders across the country, and i will be the most enthusiastic supporter of biden, whomever ticket. That would include people like kamala harris, elizabeth warren, amy klobuchar. I think there really is a great there is a huge class of highly competent Women Leaders across this country that would i think be fantastic. Anna you are following politics. Obviously you have gotten the coronavirus gotten to coronavirus right now, at how concerned are you about joe biden breaking through with everybody hunkered down, that he will not have those breakout moments that we typically see a candidate have, to have some used in momentum . Are you concerned about that as a democrat . Gov. Whitmer no. I think right now what we are seeing is a nation in crisis. It is a difficult place to navigate. If you are running for office. However, i think what people want and need to see right now is steady, thoughtful leadership that is focused on the american people. Whether it is through a podcast or through interviews, i think that comes through and i think people know joe biden. I think that is why you see the numbers the way that they are without having all of that heavy usual political presence that you would expect at this point in the cycle and the campaign. Jake im curious what your thought is. How do you run for Vice President . You or any other government governor or federal official, in a period of crisis . What does that look like, and it is it even possible . Gov. Whitmer beats me. I dont know. Im not running for anything. Jake but somebody will be running for something, but more than likely it will be a federal officeholder, right . Gov. Whitmer i dont know. You dont run for that. That is the election at the top of the ticket. Everyone else should be busy doing their jobs. Anna we will leave it there, governor. Thank you so much for taking the time this morning. We appreciate it. Thanks to all of you for joining us on the livestream, kicking off your week with the political playbook interview the politico playbook interview. Have a great week and stay safe. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] cspans washington journal live with news and policy issues that impact you. Tuesday morning, we will discuss how Contact Tracing can combat the pandemic. With this Senior Research associate at Johns Hopkins school of health. And then we will talk about chinas role of the coronavirus pandemic with the Wilson Centers robert daily. Also a discussion of georgia reopening parts of its economy amid the pandemic. First with georges 10th district congressman jodi heise and later with georges Second District democratic congressman sanford bishop. Watch cspans washington at 7 a. M. Eastern Tuesday Morning and be sure to watch washington journal on sunday at 9 a. M. For a look back six years to the student protests at kent state which erupted into a confrontation between students and the Ohio National guard. Join the discussion. Television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago but our Mission Continues to provide an unfiltered view of government. This year we brought you primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process, and now the federal response to coronavirus. The publicch all of Affairs Programming on television, online, or listen on our free radio app and be part of the National Conversation to cspans daily washington journal created by private industry, americas Cable Television companies, as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. At mondays coronavirus briefing, georgia governor bryan p announced theaters and restaurants and dining rooms can reopen if they meet certain criteria. Thethe Governor Also Announced t the shelter in place order would remain in effect through april 30, but medica
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