Welcome to Washington Post live. This is a special live freak recording of my post opinion podcast. We have a lot to talk about with my guest today. She has been her states secretary of health. She has represented her state in congress. On today, she is said to be joe bidens Vice President ial short list. Governor grisham, welcome. Governor grisham i am delighted to be on your show. Nice to meet you and spend a little time with you. Jonathan likewise. Thank you for being here. I mentioned that you were the health secretary. You were a member of congress. They gave you incredible insight how to deal with the coronavirus early on. You declared a state wide Health Emergency on when there were march 11 only four cases in your state. What did you see that pushed you to move so quickly . Governor grisham two things, you know this virus is moving so it comes with travelers. We have commuters. We are a moving hub. We are still dealing with folks trapped on a cruise in california and i dealt with the pandemic before. The earlier you start and the more aggressively you start, the better control and management efforts you have. This is the problem, because you cant see the pandemic, everyone falsely assumes it wont come here. It will be easier and we will wait until we see whats happening. But too many, its easier to explain, you have to move immediately. Otherwise, it rages out of control. We are seeing all across the country now. Beenhan you said you have through a pandemic before. Are you talking ebola or Something Else . Grisham flu. We had a flu epidemic in 2017 and in 2008 and 2005, a flu vaccine shortage and when youre in a state where youve got higher capital issues related to chronic issues in children and adults. You have a higher death rate from influenza. We have a third of the capacity of Health Care Providers and hospitalizations, i literally had to join with illinois to import a vaccine from canada which you really couldnt do and we found a soft, can i it in. Po, and brought i protected new mexico residents then. When the epidemic was coming, same thing. We didnt have investments in Public Health so getting the people vaccinated, partnering limited private Provider Group was really challenging. Im probably answering this too long, jonathan, but in december, i knew this was coming. I asked my team to plan in early january. We began to have roundtables and start looking to secure ppe and testing supplies. Jonathan thats really interesting. You started focusing on this in december and then moving with in so you anticipated january. What could happen. But did you anticipate the inaction in the federal government in terms of having a National Strategy . Governor grisham no. In my wildest dreams, i would not be spending my own specific time finding supplies, testing supplies and manufacturers trying to figure out which instruments the fda was going to authorize in an emergency use environment. Not every instrument was available. Not every reagent is available. Timewerent at the universal. Getting swabs. And then chasing ppe. In my wildest dreams, i wouldnt be dealing with the federal government who would literally then take the things that you secured and redistribute them for the country. And while you wanted to be a country focus, because it wasnt, it meant you were fighting with other governors and fema to get the adequate supplies into your state. And now we are seeing it occur again. Because we are without any federal strategy still. Now that you have these outbreaks, governors in the same situation, chasing down supplies and ppe, and trying to adequately cover their first responders. Its the most outrageous environment i have ever worked in my entire career. Jonathan lets talk about the outrageous environment you are working in in your state. You had a press conference last thursday. You said the trends are going in the wrong direction. Whats the latest data from your state and whats driving them . Governor grisham two things, we believe. We flattened the curve early, we did have some significant issues in the northwestern part of the state. Its pretty well known in the country, folks like the Navajo Nation that are dealing with really critical issues. Youve got People Living in one, remote areas without Running Water or electricity. Two, they are not near any healthcare services, largely supplied by the federal government. Two, they are dealing with the tristate region with distant different rules, different testing strategies, different resources than develop states. And the third thing is, they have a sicker population. They have incredible poverty and chronic disease issues. Again, thats largely a failure federal government. I can tell you i have seen incredible leadership by the Navajo Nation. But early on, i signaled an alarm to the white house that we need to do something specific in moren country, and specific to the Navajo Nation because they are so at risk. I couldnt get a tristate strategy up and running, i couldnt get arizona to think about aggressive testing strategies in setting up screening systems or triage systems at the border areas. Arizona, utah and mexico, really challenging. I had trouble, although great, cooperative efforts, but just it the kind of leadership needed early on from Indian Health services. Except for that, new mexico was seeing a reduction in cases in other counties in the state so we did a very slow opening. We introduced risk. That was mitigated by peoples personal behavior. And i need my surrounding states to be in a like situation. What happened . Surrounding states not in the like situations. I have to say that new mexicans and our border states, personal behaviors werent as good as they needed to be so we saw a huge rise, a jump in cases and we believe we will see a jump in the mortality rate in the next couple of weeks, which im devastated by. We immediately rolled back many of those issues. And now we are citing new mexicans and out of stators if they are not quarantined. New mexicans, if they are not Wearing Masks all the time. If youre outside of your house, you have to have a mask on. Jonathan you have given me so much to follow up on in the answer. Ill go back to what you said about another who nation because i want to talk about that. I want to zero in on something i think i missed. You said you reached out to the white house or alerted the white house but i did not hear you say you heard back from the white house. Ms. Grisham in march, i signaled the alarm that i was incredibly worried we didnt have a cohesive effort that would protect our sovereign nation and particularly the Navajo Nation, given where it sits. Covers utah,on arizona, and mexico, and they lack basic infrastructure still. I signed into law Capital Investment to connect them to Running Water. Not in all of the chapters. I have to figure out those, but i am clear about what the risks are and what we need to do with the Navajo Nation. Its not so much that i didnt hear back from the white house, its more about staying the course with that leadership. Being cohesive and comprehensive. What does it look like . What does it mean . Instead i ended up walking down , a city, doing a lot of work in one of the counties, Mckinley County delivering food and water , to all of those surrounding the Navajo Nation chapter houses the president , Vice President , and counsel of the Navajo Nation had very extreme curfews, lockdowns. The only way that works is if we bring them supplies. The federal government, it took them more than four to six weeks to get fema on the ground operating there, and i dont think they were nearly as effective until way too late in getting adequate testing and supplies. Even today, Indian Health service runs a covid19 test, it will take twice as long or even longer to get it back from a laboratory. If those tests came to our state laboratory, i can turn those around in 24 to routinely. 48 hours the sooner you know you are infected, the better we are at managing isolation in the and it is the state of new mexico that did all of the isolation sites, not the federal government. Jonathan its interesting that you can turn it around in new mexico in 24 to 48 hours. Ive been hearing from other states such as florida where it take up to a week to get results back. Let me follow up on the second in thatu mentioned first answer. That was about people coming in from other states. Weve been talking about your state has relatively lower number of covid cases compared to colorado and arizona but Covid Patients are now being moved to albuquerque and treated there due to staffing and equipment shortages in arizona. Are you concerned about the potential risk of this poses to new mexicans esther Mark Governor grisham you bet we are. We have been watching, jonathan, rates in allzation of the state. And i get it. New mexicans have every right to be both concerned about their personal wellbeing and safety and their families, and what is happening economically. I have a lot of new mexicans in areas that you get the health care early on in the pandemic. They said, we have plenty of access to Health Care Providers. If you went over the border, you have to come back and quarantine. I got a lot of pushback about that but just what we predicted, if we arent careful, the hospitals fill up. You participate in moving the virus. Of course, none of our hospitals one, its illegal, and even if it wasnt, no american would deny another american healthcare. But it does create real challenges in new mexico where i have a third of the Hospital Capacity and a third of the Ventilator Capacity in any other of any other state in the nation. So we are picking up support to texas and arizona. That means we have less available for the folks here which means i have to do an even better job at managing covid and new mexicans and more personal new mexicans are going to have to have even more personal responsibility than many other americans. At some point, the fairness argument is really going to play in this political arena. Because if we had an effective National Strategy, these equity challenges could have been and tensy mitigated, of thousands of lives across this nation wouldve been saved. Seguean this is a good to the third followup i want to to ask you about, and that is masks. You have mandated that new mexicans wear a mask. Do you think there should be a National Mandate that we should wear a mask . Absolutely. I dont have any idea how masks became political. Nobody wants to wear them, i agreed with that basic statement. We dont wear masks, we havent done that, other countries and societies in their Public Health efforts promote mask wearing. We havent done that. Its very uncomfortable and its are experienced at. But they mitigate the transmission of the virus. So its here. We have no vaccine. We dont have effective treatment. The only thing we have is to control the rate of spread rate , of infection. If we can mitigate that by mask wearing, why wouldnt we . It means you can introduce more risk like businesses and schools and without them, you cant because you cant control the rate of infection. New mexicans, im going to give them a shout out, if they dont like it, i would say overall, they have been disappointed that ive mandated, now that we are going to enforce the mandate, but i will tell you, we can see by one of the National Laboratories has an interesting way of reviewing social media and getting other anecdotal data, and i can tell based on that, with a fairly productive degree of certainty, how much mask wearing is taking hold. We are seeing dramatic increases in the number of people Wearing Masks all the time. I cant tell you is that 80 which we would like to have, that means i can introduce more risk. On 60 ,ay be closing in 70 and this will make a huge , difference in our state. And for the new mexicans have , even ifve sacrificed they disagreed, just making sure we stayed together abouternor, let me ask enforcement the of mask mandate. His Law Enforcement on board . There was an interview in cnn, where a local sheriff not in your state, they said this is america, people should have a choice of whether they want to wear a mask or not. Are you facing that kind of pushback in new mexico from Law Enforcement . Gov. Lujan grisham we are. Some of it is act salute lee that absolutely that. Primarily sheriffs who were elected. People are treating this pandemic as a political situation. It is not a political situation. It does not care whether you are republican or democrat, young or old, whether you are independent or declined to state. It does not care at all. It will attack you indiscriminately. They should be Wearing Masks all the time as first responders. Im appalled when they dont. Then i have several jurisdictions who are going to Issue Citations with the state police, who have already been issuing citations. I have to admit that we are having to invest in that advocacy, but im happy to also many moret we have than a lot of states in the situations and expect early in in terms of making sure that we do enforcement. Ive made it clear the more people who wear masks, the better we are, then the better it is for us as a state to then carefully, methodically, and slowly reintroduce some risk. And our goal is school. Im not pollyanna. The countries that have successfully open school didnt just bend the curve, they crushed the curve. Countries like germany that flattened the curve but still had an infection rate over 1 , they had trouble. They had to open had reduced participation, close, and reopen. I think the United States ought to work diligently not to be in that situation and im working diligently not to be in that situation. Im glad you brought that up. Do you makeg what of the president of the United States threatening schools if they dont reopen or threatening schools if they arent reopened . That you havenced stopped contact sports. Do you think it is responsible to open up schools on the normal schedule . Gov. Lujan grisham i think that each state needs to be really careful about what their rate of infection is and whether they have bent that curve at all before they reopen schools. Risku put the workforce at and you cant maintain it and what we dont believe kids are super vectors and kids dont seem to have the same really negative impacts from having covid, there is a lot we still dont know. New mexico has a higher rate of infection among children than any other state or most states. I need to be careful about that with the last set of data over the last week. But it is way too high. Im cautious about the risk. Here is my response to the federal government. Best of all, this seems to more of a political attack on Public Education. This is an administration that doesnt want to fund Public Education, that has been harsh and cruel about investments and strategies and outcomes for Public Education. Congressnk frankly, has worked really diligently to try to counteract many of the proposals that are discriminatory on their face. For a state that is majority majority in terms of its planation, the betsy devos for Public Education is unacceptable. Part of the same pattern, if you will. The threat is when this president cant get all of the governors on the same page, that is what he goes to. Less than a month ago, he called us all jerks on the telephone for not reopening our economies. It is an outrageous threat. It is incredibly immature. And the worst is it is dangerous. Because there is not a National Strategy. I dont mind that the white ande is clear, education going back to school is really important. These kids need to go back to school. But you better weigh those risks and you ought to be a partner. You are not a hammer. Pretend thatme to you care about Public Education. I find this threat another really shallow attempt at trying to get their way without having any real plan. The other thing i really have to say is that oneonone, members of the task force and members of the white house are in fact really effective at solving many of the state problems. If i needed more testing supplies, i could get amanda burks to put us on the testing strategy pilot. If im having trouble with manufacturers, i could call the chief of staff and they work on figuring that out. For several weeks, new mexico is a tier two state, which meant we couldnt get as many ppe and related supplies in. I got that removed. We have had folks come here and navigate the National Laboratory support. Now working on the Detention Centers. Every federal Detention Center ought to follow the same Prison Reform and activities that we have, making sure that our inmates and officers are as safe as they can be. We had an outbreak. Where did it come in . Federal Detention Center. So im getting some support now. But this could have been done as a federal strategy. Be in thiswouldnt situation we are in with an outofcontrol national where it is the worst and so many more people have died and will die. It is unconscionable for this nation to be in the situation. We have seven minutes and ive got more than seven questions. Im going to go through question from a viewer who you mentioned several times that people coming in from outofstate state have to quarantine this question from george Henry Schneider from oregon asks, you are requiring a 14 day quarantine for most visitors to new mexico, how are you enforcing that . Gov. Lujan grisham enforcing the quarantine is tough. We are asking that our lodging industries that is not an enforcement, but it is a proactive approach you should not have any reservations from folks out of state unless they affirm that they are going to stay in the cabin 14 days before they go out. We are asking the same things of our businesses. We are restricting access to things like restaurants. I hope it is not as enticing. They have to wear a mask. We have signs outside. At the airport, we have staff who tell you it is a 14day quarantine. If you are pulled over or out without a mask and we find out you are from out of date outofstate, you will get cited for violating the quarantine. The hard part is that we are not at every airport. People are driving in. I do not know. If one of our Hospitality Industry partners doesnt hold them accountable, i may or may not know about that situation. The better enforcement, we are trying to be proactive. Which means im literally advertising throughout department of tourism saying as much as we want your business, this is not when it is good for business. I need you to stay home. And you cant go to any of our parks. No camping, no hiking, no boating. If you are from out of state, you cant be at those parks. You can be cited and being as proactive and firm about travelers as we can. And we are looking at some proposals like alaska, which allows some travelers to bring you a very recent negative test and im looking about whether or not that might be a vehicle to ease up as we introduce more risk in the future. Governor, fair warning. I have two questions. And we are going to go over time because i want you to answer both. The first one has to do with the environment we are in right now. The racial environment we are in right now. You had a situation in new mexico where armed rightwing militias shot someone while people were taking down a statue. Could you just reflect on the conversation we are having right now about racial injustice, but also about the statues conversation . Your view about where we are right now. Gov. Lujan grisham i really appreciate that, jonathan. Im going to try to they are still investigating exactly the individual who shot fired the aot that critically injured young man during a protest, really making clear that this is also a state that has institutional racism and we need to do everything in our power to address it. It is not really clear if someone of that militia, the civil guard, actually was the perpetrator of the shots fired, but what we do know is this. The militia should not have been engaging or intimidating or creating an environment that absolutely created the conditions for that hostile event and that risk. Thinks untenable and we as of actually this week there will be charges filed against this new mexico militia for bringing intimidation to many of our protests. Two, the whole issue it is unacceptable in new mexico and we are doing everything we can about it and we are attending to come as we should as leaders, that racial unrest in this climate in this country requires every single leadership tool in our toolbox. If we dont do it now, it is not going to get done. Forwarding continue our racist past. I want to be in a state that rejects that and does everything we can. New mexico has a tough history. City is still under a Consent Decree from the department of justice for Excessive Force for their police department. We have an incredibly negative outcome in statistics about Excessive Force resulting in the death involving an officer shooting of an individual. So we are really clear about how th a really clear about how this can get out of hand in ways nobody wants. So, right now, weve got a commission on civilrights. We are going to look at Police Brutality in particular. That means new Police Training requirements, deescalation, looking at Community Police strategies that are less about a name and more about Real Community efforts that build trust and can protect us in different ways. We are engaging our Public Education department. We are not going to end institutional racism until we do Something Different in education. We are now requiring body cams in every police jurisdiction. We talked about statues. New mexico has got its own effort with the conquistadors who came here 400 years ago. They came as conquerors. They conquered and these are individuals im related to. And they enslaved native americans and the amount of frankly reallye untold and unknown in our state because they dont teach it. Somewhere in this state is an incredible opportunity, given that we are so multicultural and a minority majority state, that we need statues that are clear and clearly marked about at a past we are not proud of and why they are important teaching moments, but they cant be celebrated. And weve got to be in a place where we celebrate the victories of coming together and attacking pastm and not abiding by a that was about conquering, killing, raping, murdering, or enslaving. And we know that is how the world moved, but we should be much more enlightened than that today. We should be teaching every american that we can only heal by recognizing our past and being accountable to it, but also preventing it from moving anywhere in the future. That is what new mexico is going to do and im really proud of that. And it wont be easy. If i made that sound easy, i want everyone to know watching your show it will not be easy. Governor, last question. As i mentioned in the introduction, you are said to be on the short list to be joe bidens Vice President ial running mate. If you are selected, you would be the first latinx american to be on the president ial ticket. Talk personally about what it means to you and your family that your name is being talked about as a potential Vice President of the United States . Gov. Lujan grisham that is a tough question, jonathan. I lost my father almost 10 years ago. In thenced one day backyard that i wanted to run for congress because i cared so much about health care at the time. Hillary clinton and senator barack obama were debating in a primary at the Time Health Care changes so we could have adequate coverage to protect americans and i was all in. I wanted it. I have to say that my children and my Close Friends were just shaking their heads, you cant just run for office and go right into a contested primary for congress. Oneather was my number champion. He was incredibly proud. Weve got a very proud family. My grandfather was the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice and chief justice of the state. A cousin of mine was the very first member of congress, republican. We lost him a number of years ago. He was the secretary of the interior for the first bush administration. So there are very deeprooted legacies here and i can tell you unequivocally my father would be incredibly proud. For me personally, i want a white house, i want a Biden White House that is clear about governing, clear about respecting all americans, and clear about National Strategies that can really make a difference in governors being able to make the kinds of differences they need and bringing congress back together so that they are a more cohesive political body. Want biden to pick the person who gets his ticket elected and allows him to do the kind of leadership and renewal efforts that are so badly needed. So it is flattering, but i just try to keep focus here and im grateful that my family legacy gets an opportunity to get promoted. Unabashed on your Incredible Program here today. Governor Michelle Lujan grisham, thank you very much for be cspans washington journal. Every day were taking your calls live on the air on the news of the day and well discuss policy issues that impact you. Coming up Tuesday Morning, a discussion about campaign 2020 and the battle for the senate with inside elections. And well talk about tax policy and coronavirus with the committee for a responsible federal budget president. Watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern Tuesday Morning and be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, ext messages and tweets. Here is a look at our live coverage tuesday. At 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan, the House AppropriationsCommittee Considers 2021 spending bills for defense, commerce, transportation, housing and the justice department. N cspan 2 at 10 45 a. M. Eastern, the house oversights effort to develop a Coronavirus Vaccine and joe biden talking about his Clean Energy Plan in wilmington, delaware. Dr. Anthony fauci speaks to students at Georgetown University about the coronavirus and slowing the spread and c span span 3, the Energy Secretary talks about his agencys response to the pandemic. That gets underway at noon eastern. Campaign 2020 was aboute and a half months before the election. Give us e