Name: New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham on the DNC, the Intense V.P. Vetting Process, and Serving in a Biden Cabinet
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New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham on the DNC, the Intense V.P. Vetting Process, and Serving in a Biden Cabinet

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In January, while the Trump administration about the looming coronavirus, New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham began preparing for a pandemic. “I saw it coming,” Lujan Grisham told Vogue in a phone interview on Tuesday.The former health secretary of a state committed to science (it’s home to Los Alamos National Laboratory, creator of the first atomic bomb), Lujan Grisham convened a medical advisory board and sounded the alarm with testing manufacturers. By March, she issued a swift shutdown order when New Mexico had only a handful of cases. , New Mexico had already opened its first drive-through testing site, what felt like eons before far richer states with sophisticated medical systems.Lujan Grisham’s leadership helped avert disaster in a pandemic that caught so many leaders (cough: the president) unaware. And it propelled her, the first Democratic Latina governor in U.S. history and former chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, to the being considered for Vice President Biden’s running mate. Though Senator , according to , Lujan Grisham is now believed to be eyeing a Cabinet position in a potential Biden administration: Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. On night three of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, she’ll address the country as part of a powerhouse lineup, including Harris, former president Barack Obama, and Senator Elizabeth Warren.Vogue spoke with Lujan Grisham about her upcoming speech, the “exhausting” V.P. vetting process, and her state of mind on the HHS post.Governor, how are you?I am doing really well. I’ve been whining to everyone I’ve talked to today. I had to put my furry friend down yesterday, my shih tzu I’ve had for 17 years.I’m so sorry. I’ve been there, and it’s heart-wrenching.It was the worst. It was awful, but you’re distracting me.You’re speaking at the convention on Wednesday night. Are you disappointed or relieved that it’s a virtual speech and not a packed hall?There’s no disappointment. It’s an incredible honor to be asked. But I like having an audience. It is, I think, more challenging to feel like you got your message across. In two to four minutes, it is really tough. We’ve got several existential threats, right? Racism, climate change, someone who is ill-equipped and hateful in the White House.... I want to highlight hope about transforming our country and our states post-COVID.You were in the running to be Vice President Biden’s running mate. What was that process like, and how much did you want that job?When I spoke with the vice president, he said, “You know, I didn’t want that job when I got asked to do that job,” and I said, “Well, good, then that should be a relatable experience for you as you work to identify your running mate.” I was really proud of Stacey Abrams, who said, “Of course I want that job. I want every job that puts me in a position to lead.”I ran for the job where I thought I could make the biggest difference for the country: being a good governor, particularly now, in addressing the pandemic. So, it wasn’t something I was seeking, but that experience—as painful as it is, to have to go through your entire life, everything that you did well, everything that you now question—is a remarkable thing. They look at everything. It is an exhausting process. How exciting and proud for all of us to be included in a powerful, incredibly successful group of women. He said part of his job was to build a bridge to future Democratic leaders, and who are those future Democratic leaders? It’s an incredible body of women who represent every ethnic and racial background you can think of.I read that you didn’t know Vice President Biden very well before. What did you learn about him in the process?That he’s the genuine deal. I told this story during the vetting process. My fiancé is a proud Hispanic. His name is Manny Cordova. He thought that hard work, “you pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” was somehow a Republican philosophy, although how I fell in love with him is that guy has every Democratic value. Here’s a guy that was dedicating his off hours to serving the homeless. I was running for Congress when I met him in 2012, and I didn’t get him to change his party affiliation—Joe Biden did. He met the vice president during the second-term inaugural activities. He walked right up to my fiancé, they talked about hard work and dignity, and that was it. Joe is authentic. Some of my supporters might tell you I’m a little too authentic; I shouldn’t be starting interviews with a sorrowful story about my beloved furry daughter, but it is who we are. Joe is who he says he is.Most PopularThis is off topic, but how are you going to get married during COVID, or has the pandemic ruined your wedding?It didn’t ruin our wedding. We’ve been engaged for a long time, and I keep saying that we’re going to get married when the earth cools. I do think my fiancé, given all of the things that are going on, is feeling like it needs to happen. So, absolutely post-COVID, in the next year or so, we could expect a New Mexico wedding.You are one of the governors who has handled this pandemic well. How did you know to act swiftly when so many others were caught unaware?I was clear when we saw what was unfolding in China that we had a pandemic in the making on our hands. When I was the [New Mexico] secretary of health, I went through a flu epidemic. When we didn’t have enough flu vaccine, I had to import flu vaccine from Canada, which at the time—even today, arguably—is not legal. So I partnered up with Illinois—Illinois got into trouble; New Mexico didn’t.I knew that the federal government was going to be inept. I was worried. We know the mortality rates are higher in minority populations. We know they’re going to be incredibly high in Native American populations. Half of all the pregnant women tested for COVID are Hispanic. We started running exercises in New Mexico in January. I began to get familiar with all of the manufacturers, and as soon as we saw CDC didn’t have a test that was credible, I already had relationships. We did a really strict shutdown and stay-at-home order after we only had two cases, and I think people were a bit shocked by that, but it really did pay off.** You’re so good at this that now your name is being mentioned as a potential health and human services secretary in a hypothetical Biden administration. Is that a job you’d want?**You’re grounded for asking me the question. Like in the context of being vetted for vice president, I want them to look to governors because the HHS secretary is going to have to immediately deal with COVID and a whole different strategy for public health, period. I am hopeful about the American vaccine clinical trials and then getting that vaccine distributed. That’s the next big battle here. Folks who don’t believe in vaccines, this is another huge battle, and then we have millions of Americans who lost their jobs, who don’t have insurance.Most PopularWe have a lot of work to do, so I want them to look to a governor just like me, who has that experience. I learned health care, frankly, by watching my parents have to protect my sister, who was uninsurable because of her brain cancer. Women navigate health care decisions for their families, so I think women are well equipped to be in that job.Now let me pivot. This is the job I asked New Mexicans to give me. I am uniquely focused here. I expect that my advice to Biden/Harris will be taken with a great deal of seriousness about what they’re going to look for. I am available and open and incredibly willing to help support that effort and for them to respect that I have real expectations about what New Mexicans deserve and need to combat COVID. I think that’s the best outcome for America—come to folks like me, not just me, for expertise, and we’ll see what happens from there.Governors rose up at a time when, as you said, the federal government is inept. There was this where President Trump was on a conference call with governors, and regarding respirators and ventilators, he said, “Try getting it yourselves.” And you said, “If one state doesn’t get the resources and materials they need, the entire nation continues to be at risk.” What was crossing your mind on that call?I expected it, but it was incredibly disappointing. Because they were failing. They were trying to say, “It’s not us, it’s the governors.” It was this clear political shift. They didn’t treat this as a public health emergency. They said it was a hoax. And then to tell states to compete? It’s a mess. One hundred seventy thousand deaths is inexcusable. It’s malpractice at the federal level.Most PopularThe Trump administration has relentlessly attacked the Latino community—, . I’m the daughter of a Cuban immigrant, and I wonder if, in this era, I would even be here because my family would have been denied asylum. As the first Democratic Latina governor in U.S. history, do you feel these assaults personally?It is the ultimate hypocrisy for a country that was built with immigrant families. To have a federal administration that continues to attack, divide, and create racial unrest is disgusting. My family’s been in New Mexico for 400 years, so we don’t think of ourselves as first or second or third generation. In New Mexico, we’ve got 5,000-plus individuals who are currently semi-protected under DACA. I’ve got mixed-status families in my own family who are at risk every single day.The reckoning moment for me—in addition to the hateful, racist rhetoric and the all-out assault on legal immigration, as well as attacking all of our undocumented, who, by golly, are doing all of the essential work in this country, still—was when I went to an immigration hearing and there was a three-year-old, doesn’t speak English, by himself. When we speak of reparations in this country, what are you going to do for those families? I will never forget it, and I will never stop fighting to correct it.Does the Latino community need to have its own individual uprising? Where do we go from here?I don’t know the answer, but it is something we are going to have to navigate. This is an opportunity to come together as a country, but there are unique issues to each community of color, and losing those is problematic. [New Mexico’s] constitution says that our official language is Spanish. Can you imagine when someone says, “This is America, you have to speak English”? Well, apparently, you don’t understand how New Mexico works. We have a Native American Department in New Mexico, where we recognize that we have government-to-government relationships with 23 sovereign nations in the state. But we don’t have a Department of Hispanic Affairs and African-American Affairs. Why am I, in a minority-majority state, the first Democratic Latina governor in the country, with all of the Hispanics in California and Arizona and Nevada and Colorado and Texas and Florida? Why do we have so few Hispanic elected officials?Most Popular** It’s been pointed out that the states and countries** , which have fared better during the pandemic, are led by women. Is that a coincidence?I honestly don’t think it is. Women have to make really tough decisions for work and their families, and they’ve had to balance all of these issues—an economic issue with a family crisis. Women are really equipped to do crisis management. Those leadership skills are playing out all across the world, and it’s about damn time.This interview has been edited and condensed.All the essentials: top fashion stories, editor’s picks, and celebrity style.

In January, while the Trump administration about the looming coronavirus, New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham began preparing for a pandemic. “I saw it coming,” Lujan Grisham told Vogue in a phone interview on Tuesday.The former health secretary of a state committed to science (it’s home to Los Alamos National Laboratory, creator of the first atomic bomb), Lujan Grisham convened a medical advisory board and sounded the alarm with testing manufacturers. By March, she issued a swift shutdown order when New Mexico had only a handful of cases. , New Mexico had already opened its first...

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New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham on the DNC, the Intense V.P. Vetting Process, and Serving in a Biden Cabinet

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