Welcome to a special talking feds one-on-one. I'm Harry Littman. We continue in our series

of interviews with political leaders who have been prominently mentioned as possible

Vice Presidential candidates for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Today we are speaking with Gretchen Whitmer the governor of Michigan. Governor Whitmer has come to

national attention for her stewardship of the state during the virus. Michigan has been

especially hard hit and Whitmer responded with a strict shelter-in-place order which she is now

beginning to ease in selected respects. President Trump has singled her out for school boy Twitter

taunts that woman from Michigan and half Whitmer. And Michigan has seen well publicized demonstrations

including by gun rights advocates toting assault weapons at the Capitol. And lately she has drawn

personal threats of violence from anonymous Facebook groups. But Whitmer has remained steady and

engaged and her support has stayed strong among both parties within the state which of course

is about as battleground as they come in terms of the upcoming presidential election. Her

approval rating for handling the virus is over 70%. Whitmer has had a fairly stratospheric rise

to the governor's office. She was the senate's first female Democratic leader from 2011 to 2015.

When she ran for governor in 2018 emphasizing infrastructure issues she won the Democratic

primary in all 83 Michigan counties then trounced her republic opponent by nearly 10 points.

This notwithstanding being a self-identified progressive Democrat in a state on the knife's

edge of division between the parties. The Democratic party chose her to give the response to

President Trump's 2020 state of the Union address which she delivered from the public high school

that two of her daughters attend in East Lansing. She earned high marks quoting Jen Rubin of the

Washington Post. Whitmer quote succeeded in part because she seemed so normal, so decent and because

she focused on her own life experience. The struggles of a middle class mom who unlike a clueless

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