Governor Gretchen Whitmer on COVID-19, Trump, and the Accusations Against Joe Biden

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2020

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

Michigan is the tenth-largest state by population, but it has the third-largest number of COVID-19 deaths. Governor Gretchen Whitmer enacted some of the country’s most stringent stay-at-home orders, even forbidding landscaping and fishing. Furious and sometimes armed protesters became national news. Meanwhile, Whitmer’s outspoken criticism of the Trump Administration’s efforts on behalf of the states made her a frequent target of the President. “I didn’t ask to be thrown into the national spotlight,” Whitmer tells Susan B. Glasser. “I’m just trying to do my job, and I’m never going to apologize for that. Because lives are at stake here.” Whitmer’s national visibility has brought rumors that she is on the short list for Joe Biden’s Vice-Presidential pick. Whitmer is a sexual-assault survivor herself, and she explains why she stands by Biden despite the accusation made by his former aide Tara Reade. Susan B. Glasser also speaks with David Remnick about the tensions that have emerged between the federal government and the states. While mostly targeting Democratic governors, Trump has also criticized some in his own party.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.8	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The death toll from COVID-19 is now above
0:16.7	70,000. The hotspots are shifting, and polls find broad public support for stay-at-home orders.
0:24.8	And yet many states are moving to reopen as quickly as possible. This despite reports circulating
0:30.1	in the White House that lifting restrictions too early will result in more cases of the disease.
0:36.5	Texas Governor Greg Abbott admitted his much last week
0:39.1	privately to legislators,
0:41.1	while at the same time explaining his plan to reopen.
0:44.9	More transmission of the disease means inevitably, more deaths.
0:49.6	And as for the president, he told the states to compete against one another
0:52.8	to obtain medical supplies, and he's made reopening a matter for the states to compete against one another to obtain medical supplies,
0:54.8	and he's made reopening a matter for the governors to handle as well.
0:58.6	Meanwhile, on Twitter, Donald Trump eggs on protesters like the ones in Michigan.
1:05.1	Let us sit! Let us in! Let us in! Let us in! Let us in! Let us in! The New Yorker's Washington correspondent, Susan Glasser, joins me now.
1:14.8	Susan, welcome.
1:16.0	Thank you so much, David.
1:17.6	So the president seems to be encouraging protests specifically in swing states with Democratic governors.
1:23.9	Why for Donald Trump is it good to have these optics? Forgive me that Washington word, of armed people brandishing reactionary slogans on the steps of the state capital and even in the state capital?
1:35.2	Why can that possibly be good for him?
1:39.3	I'm only laughing because in conventional political terms, it's not. But Donald Trump is a fervent
1:47.5	believer that in a divided, partisan, gridlocked United States, having a fervent minority
1:53.9	behind you is more politically valuable than having a less passionate majority. And that is his strategy. There's also, I think, a
	...

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