CNN "State of the Union with Jake Tapper" - Interview with Gretchen Whitmer

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Governor Whitmer, thanks so much for joining us. Hope everyone in your world is safe and healthy.

President Trump tweeted on Friday about your state -- quote -- "Liberate Michigan."

What's your response to that message and others like it from President Trump?

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): The only response is that Michigan right now has the third highest death count in the country. We are the 10th largest state.

As you can deduce, this means we have a uniquely hard issue going on here, because it's disproportionately hurting our state. And that's why we need to take a uniquely aggressive action to protect people.

Our actions are working. My stay-home order is one of the nation's more conservative, but the fact of the matter is, it's working. We are seeing the curve start to flatten. And that means we're saving lives.

And the hard part of public health is, when you're doing a good job, you're saving lives, and it's hard to quantify precisely what that looks like.

But we know that this curve was steep at the trajectory we were headed, and now it looks as though it is starting to flatten. These efforts are making a difference and saving lives. We have got to continue doing it.

TAPPER: There have been a lot of criticisms of how detailed your stay-at-home orders are, in terms of people not being allowed to buy seeds for gardening in stores, or people not being allowed to use jet skis, although they're allowed to use kayaks.

A spokesperson for the Michigan Retailers Association said, there's just confusion all over the place when it comes to your executive order.

Do you regret anything about the way these rules have been rolled out?

WHITMER: You know, this is an unprecedented crisis that we are confronting as a globe, frankly.

And the harsh -- the harsh way that it's hitting my state means that we have got to be really smart about the actions we take now to protect life, as well as the actions we take to reengage.

And no one's more anxious to reengage our economy than I am. But I want to do it in a way that really does save life, that makes it safe, that mitigates risk, and means that we can avoid a second wave, because, as tough as this moment is, it would be devastating to have a second wave.

And I know that the vast majority of Michiganders understand that. Not going to the gas station to fill up your boat, so that you can go tooling around, is a sacrifice, but it is one that is worth it, because who among us wouldn't rather forgo jet-skiing or boating right now if it's going to save your grandparents or your neighbor's life?

And that's precisely what the trade-off is in this moment. TAPPER: Governor, you have said that testing is an essential piece of

fighting the virus.

We have a chart up here of the states with at least 1,000 coronavirus deaths, and Michigan is next to last, with just over 1,000 tests per 100,000 residents. That's just a half or a third of the number in other hot spots, such as New York, Louisiana, Massachusetts.

The Trump administration says that you, all governors, have enough tests. Why is testing still so low per capita in your state? How long do you think it will be until you have enough infrastructure set up to test, isolate, contact trace, in order to reopen?

WHITMER: Well, right now, I can tell you, we could double or even triple the number of tests that we're executing daily if we had the swabs and reagents.

And I know you talked to Governors Northam and Hogan before I came on, and they're saying the exact same thing. This is not a unique situation in Michigan.

But the crisis that we're confronting is unique. And that's precisely why it would really be incredibly helpful if the federal government would use the Defense Production Act to start making these swabs and reagents, so we can improve testing.

Even by their own guidelines, they say that you should have 14 days of declining growth, that you should be able to test. But their gating criteria says only testing for high-risk health care providers. That's not nearly enough.

You talk to any epidemiologist, and they tell you, we should be testing between 1 and 2 percent of our population regularly. And that's precisely why we need these fundamental supply chain issues addressed, so we can ramp up our testing, and have some confidence in the numbers, and know when it's safe to engage, and be able to track folks after we have started to reengage parts of our economy.

[09:50:10]

TAPPER: I have heard from people in the administration that one of the issues is that there are millions of tests out there that have been sent to states, but that the governors don't even know that those tests are in the states, not necessarily through any fault of the governors.

Is that one of the problems here, that tests are being put out on the market, but you're not even being informed about it?

WHITMER: Well, in some cases, yes, we will get tests into our health care providers, and it's -- we're dependent on them to let us know that that's happened.

That's not a great way to run this system. It would be nice if we had a national strategy that was working with the states, so every state knew precisely what was coming in. But, at the end of the day, we governors are doing the best we can

with what we have got. We could use some assistance, though, to make sure that those supply chain issues are addressed, and we can do the robust testing that every epidemiologist in our country tells you is absolutely essential as we prepare to think about reengaging sectors of our economy.

TAPPER: Governor Gretchen Whitmer, thank you so much for your time.

Hope you and everyone in your world stays safe and healthy.

WHITMER: You, too.

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