Governor Hogan.

Thank you for joining us this morning.

You know that yesterday was the deadliest day yet in Maryland.

Do you still expect to begin the first phase of reopening in early May?

Well, I laid out a ah plan yesterday that was very well thought out.

First of all, Wednesday, we put out Ah, the as chairman of the National Governors Association.

We put out a roadmap in a guideline for all the other governors across America about things that they ought to consider.

Yesterday I launched are kind of roadmap to recovery for the state of Maryland, which incorporated some of those things that we put in the National Governors Association.

Planet took the input from some really of the top epidemiologists and scientists here in Maryland, from Johns Hopkins and from Scott Gottlieb, who is the former FDA commissioner.

From a I report and from a Hopkins report.

It's very well thought out.

Ah, and we're watching certain metrics and looking at a pattern of numbers.

Before we make any kind of decisions, everything is going to be based on the numbers and the science.

We're not gonna do anything.

That's Ah, that's gonna put anybody in more danger.

I want to get our economy back, opened justice soon as soon as we can.

But I want to do so in a safe way so we don't have a spike.

We don't cause more deaths or an overloading of our health care system.

As chair of the energy air.

You concerned that any of those other states were seeing now open like George in Oklahoma, that they're moving too fast.

So the president made it clear that you know that governors were going to be making their own decisions based on the facts on the ground in their own states.

And that's exactly what they are doing.

Certain states are in different points of the curve, and they've got different situations on the ground.

And I don't want second guess my colleagues in different states.

I'm not really that familiar with everything that's going on in every state because I'm so focused on what's going on here in my state, in my region.

Ah, but I think you know various governors are making decisions based on what they think is best for their state.

Um, I'm gonna be very cautious.

We're gonna make decisions on science.

We're gonna do things together as a region here in the Washington metropolitan area, where with Virginia and D.

C, where, quite frankly where while we have some encouraging numbers on hospitalizations and I see you with which are leveling off, we're still going up with the spectre the number of cases in the number of deaths.

On Friday, your emergency management agency put out an alert to the citizens of Maryland saying, making sure that they did not ingest or inject disinfectants after the president's comments.

And the president came out that day and had this to say about his comments.

I was asked you to start quickly Castaic in a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside.

But it does kill it, and it would kill it on the hands.

And that would make things much better.

That was done in the form of a sarcastic question to the reporters.

Many of your citizens didn't see it.

A sarcasm.

Is that how you took it?

Well, look, I I think it's really important This has been important to me from day one about communicating very clearly on the facts because people listen to these press conferences.

They listen when the governor holds a press conference and they certainly pay attention when the president of the United States is standing there giving a press conference about something as serious as this worldwide pandemic.

And, um, that I think when misinformation comes out or you just say something that pops in your head, it does send a wrong message.

And we had hundreds of calls come into our emergency hotline in our health department asking if it was if it was right to ingest Clorox or, you know, alcohol cleaning products.

Ah, whether that was gonna help them fight the virus.

So we had to put out that warning to make sure that people were not doing something like that which would kill people actually to do it.

How do you explain that something like that?

You know, I can't really explain it, George.

I just think, Look, I think there Ah, the president's got to focus on the message, stick to a message and make sure that these press conferences are fact based.

I think other people in the administration have been trying to get to make that clear to him as well.

And we saw a different kind of a press conference yesterday, which I think may be showing that there's gonna be a different trend in the future.

You also saw this week Senator McConnell make those comments about states considering bankruptcy.

You heard what Governor Witmer had to say about that.

She considered it just a dangerous idea, completely rejected it off the table.

You said that Senator McConnell is going to reject it.

Is it indeed, off the table, this idea of of states going into bankruptcy?

Well, so the National Governors Association for over a month has been pushing.

This is a very bipartisan effort to get the money on.

That was in the fourth stimulus package to get $500 billion to the states.

So we're on the front lines.

We've taken all these actions.

We've got to provide these necessary services to help people get back on their feet.

It's critical to their rebounding of our economy, and we've talked with people in both houses, both Republicans and Democrats.

It was very close to happening in this 3.5.

Senator McConnell blocked it.

We have a commitment from the president and the vice president, and there's bipartisan legislation in the Senate to do something to help support the states.

And I just said I thought Mitch McConnell probably would regret making those that comment the other day.

I think it just slipped out.

But I'm hopeful that we will be able to convince Ah, Senator McConnell to go along with the bipartisan bill in the Senate and and the administration's commitment to help the states in the in that final stimulus package.

Finally, governor, your state has put off the presidential primary vote until June 2nd, and you're encouraging people to vote by mail in the primaries.

Are you Are you made giving that same guidance to your the citizens of Maryland for the general election in November as well?

Vote by mail.

So we had a early get in April primary, and one of the first ah executive orders I I I signed was to postpone that until June, and to make that a A by mail primary, we have a couple of precincts open, one in each county to allow for special folks for people that are disabled of blind voters, for example, on people that didn't have a fixed address but almost completely by mail.

And our state Board of Elections is taking a look at that for the general election as well.

Just to see what we're gonna see, How this thing goes in June.

And then we have several months to be able to prepare for that November election.

But hopefully it will work out.

Well, we want to make sure every single vote is counted.

And we want to make sure that our citizens air safe while there while they're exercising that right to vote.

Governor Hogan, Thanks for your time this morning.

Thank you, George.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos Here.

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