You work hard at something for four long years. What kind of parting thoughts do you suppose you'd have?

Hmm? From American public media. This is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl Tuesday, today to 14th of January.

Good as always to have you along, everybody.

The political news of this day was the start to confirmation hearings for President-elect Trump's cabinet nominees, details of this particular day's events to be had elsewhere in your news feed.

For every new person coming into the cabinet, though, one is leaving, including Commerce Secretary, Gina Raimondo, who we have gotten on the phone one last time.

Madam Secretary, welcome back to the program.

Thank you, Kai.

Yes. I just wanted to say,. Thank you, Kai. Yes.

I just wanted to say, I know you're in L.A.

Yeah.

And it's just unbelievable to see how tragic this situation is.

So to you and your teammates and everybody out there, heart goes out to you and we're thinking of you.

I appreciate that thought.

I'm one of the very lucky ones out here.

It's been rough.

So to the case at hand, you have been working hard the past several months based on everything that's coming out of your department on the Chips Act and AI regulation and all that jazz.

And I guess the first question is, how sharply did the results of the election concentrate your mind?

Well, they concentrated in my mind very sharply, although I can't say they change the work I'm doing here very much.

We have had a plan all along to make the bulk of these investments by the end of the administration, regardless of who won the election.

And we're sticking to that plan.

We'll have invested almost all of the chips money and the broadband money by the end of the week, which was our plan all along.

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