Governor Hogan joined Bloomberg TV & Radio to discuss the crisis in Afghanistan, Maryland’s COVID leadership, and the federal infrastructure negotiations.
Governor Hogan on Afghan Allies: “Our state of Maryland is the fourth most in the country as far as taking in these SIVs (Special Immigrant Visas)…These are our allies that we made a commitment to. We gave them our word. They served beside us as interpreters and served in other capacities assisting U.S. military and our embassy…We’ve got to first get all of our Americans out, which we haven’t done a very good job of, but we’ve also got to get out these allies who are standing beside us because it’s the right thing to do and it’s a commitment we made.”
Governor Hogan on Maryland’s COVID and Economic Leadership: “We have vaccinated more than 80% of our adult population, 18 and over. We’ve vaccinated just under 95% of our population, 65 and up. We’re one of the most vaccinated states in America with one of the lowest case rates…We’ve had 15 months of job growth…We’ve had one of the best economic recoveries in the country and one of the best COVID recoveries.”
Governor Hogan on Local Control: “I understand the folks saying they don’t want to mandate that people have to do this and have to do that, but they’re mandating that people can do it, which doesn’t make any sense. There is duly elected local school boards that do have the power to make those decisions for themselves. There is businesses that should be able to make their own decisions. They talk a lot about freedom and not wanting mandates, but they’re mandating the businesses and schools and local businesses do exactly what they tell them. To me, it’s kind of a basic traditional conservative Republican principle that you want local government at the local level making those decisions.”
Governor Hogan on Infrastructure Negotiations: “I’ve been very involved in the infrastructure fight. I was chairman of the National Governors Association. I led a year-long infrastructure initiative, which became the basis for the compromise bill that has now passed the Senate and we’re hopefully going to get passed through the House because America’s got crumbling infrastructure. We can create a lot of jobs and take care of things that have been kicked down the road for decades…But now you have the far-left of the Democratic party in the House saying no, we’re not going to do the compromise infrastructure unless we get every single thing we wanted originally in it…I know Joe Biden said that he wanted to work in a bipartisan way…but now he’s not standing up to Pelosi and AOC in the House.”