All right, well, thank you, everyone, for being here and thank you for joining us today. I know that people were most likely up quite late last night. I know I was, and it was obviously a big night both nationally and in Minnesota, and the country spoke out. With nearly one voice from South Carolina and Texas to Ohio and Kansas, from small towns to the suburbs to the metropolitan areas, and people are obviously sick and tired of the cost and the chaos and the corruption coming out of this administration in Washington, D.C.
But we're here in Minnesota, and my job is to focus on what's before us in Minnesota. I am committed as ever to moving our state forward, not moving our state to the left or to the right, but moving our state forward. Many Minnesotans voted for me, and some didn't, and as we prepare for my administration, I want every Minnesotan to know this: whether or not I got your vote, I will do my best for you. I will work my heart out for you. Nobody will work harder.
I am relentlessly focused on bringing people with us to transform Minnesota and transform our state government to match your drive and ambition. Last night I spoke about the campaign that we ran. It was a campaign built on substance instead of political punch lines. One columnist today said it was flawless, which I truly appreciated. I guess he wasn't behind the scenes at every moment, but we really did our best to put out our best for the people. But for me, there is no time to look in the rearview mirror back at everything about that campaign and the ads and everything. My focus starting this morning is to move our state forward.
That's what I will do as your governor with my lieutenant governor, Ben Shire. You see how coordinated we are already on the first day with his matching tie with my suit. So we are going to work together flawlessly. We believe that we must have a vision, which I've laid out during this campaign, and that we must have goals, which we will lay out, and that we also must be accountable to the people of this state.
So here we go. Number one, transforming state government: we're going to rebuild trust, speed up government, and work for you. That means rooting out the waste, fraud, and abuse and cutting through the red tape. It begins with a top-to-bottom audit of our state government starting on day one. There will be zero tolerance for fraud in my administration. We will work every day to stop fraud before it starts. How? By vetting grants and contracts before funds are awarded and screening providers before the money goes out the door. We'll have in-person inspections and unannounced visits, and if you're caught trying to rip off Minnesota taxpayers, there will be serious consequences. We will strengthen criminal penalties and send those who commit fraud to jail.
We will also make government more effective. Your tax dollars should get you good customer service. We'll cut through the red tape that slows everything down while streamlining and consolidating services. For one, permitting needs to become more efficient. You should be able to track applications on routine requests of our government just like you track a package, and if it's not decided or processed by a certain date, you should get your money back. If Domino's can do that, we can do it too. Here's the bottom line: if something works or is working, we will keep it. If it's broken, we will fix it or get rid of it.
Number two, expanding our economy with a growth agenda. Minnesota built this nation. We do big things. We brought the world everything from the pacemaker to the Post-it note, but we cannot rest on our laurels. We must continue to be a state that makes stuff, that invents things, that exports to the world. For that to happen, we must make it easier to do business and create good jobs in Minnesota, and give Minnesotans the skills and the pathways that they need to get those jobs. We have a strong foundation, and we should never forget that, with 18 Fortune 500 companies and 500 small businesses, but we cannot rest on our laurels.
I will be a partner to the innovators in our state. I will be a partner to the workers in our state. I will be a partner to the business leaders in our state to streamline processes so it doesn't take months or a degree in rocket science to start a business, build and expand a business, and bring good-paying jobs to our state — except maybe for the aerospace industry that is developing in our state. You might want a rocket degree.
I will also expand Minnesota's workforce, because any Minnesotan who is willing to work should be able to have a path forward, a path to success that starts, of course, with our K-through-12 schools. I'm very serious about getting student achievement up and screen time in the classrooms down. And when it comes to job training, we have this moment in time as we see AI coming our way, which of course needs guardrails on the federal and state basis, but we have this moment to look at our workforce needs. There are a whole bunch of AI-proof jobs out there, jobs that are open right now, whether it's in the health care field, whether it is in the trades.
And Ben and I are committed to adding 10,000 more apprenticeships. That's doubling the apprenticeships in our state in a vast number of areas, because we know that is a key for many young people or even workers that are leaving jobs and going into new jobs. It gives them that opportunity to get that leg up, to get that job. I will work with colleges, businesses, and with the labor unions to expand pipelines to jobs in education, health care, public safety, and emerging industries. Our future is up to us, and I truly believe we can get to a better place together.
Number three, taking real steps to make life more affordable. We will take action to address the high costs Minnesotans are facing, including health care, housing, and child care. On health care, I've outlined my plan. It is right there on our website to bring down the cost of premiums by blocking unfair insurance rate hikes, extending reinsurance, and creating a state tax credit if the federal government won't act — although those chances have improved after last night when it comes to the very important tax credit, given that 8 million people have been tossed off their health care nationally since the president came into office.
I will build on my years of fighting and beating Big Pharma to lower prescription drug prices by expanding bulk purchasing of drugs. Housing should be more affordable. That's our goal. We will work with the private sector to build 100,000 more homes, from apartments to single-family houses. The road-to-housing bill that just passed the Congress this last year is going to be very helpful in paving that way, and I know where the money is buried over there. And I also know the provisions in that bill, since I wrote part of it. We must build houses faster, and that means permitting needs to be faster as well. Clear timelines, quicker decisions, more homes.
Finally, I believe that Minnesota families deserve child care that is safe, affordable, and high quality. We will support innovative child care models, build new facilities, expand the child care workforce, streamline the funding that's there now for scholarships and other things. Many more kids can be helped, and this is another place to cut red tape. That's my vision for our state's future. I've really kept to the same vision from the minute I announced this campaign — albeit a short one — to the end. The election is now behind us, and it's time to get to work.
So today is day one of my transition, and I'm glad to share some of the details of that. First of all, my well-respected friend and former deputy way back at the county attorney's office, Cindy Justin, is chairing our transition team. She is a former Court of Appeals judge, and she served as commissioner of human services during the Dayton administration and has a very good understanding of some of these agencies that need to be fixed. As I mentioned, she was also one of my top deputies in the Hennepin County Attorney's Office. When I came into that office, I made a number of changes, and I know she was a change maker that helped me to do that. She also worked with then Chief of Staff Tina Smith on Governor Dayton's first transition. So she will lead our transition team to put our administration in position to begin delivering for Minnesotans right away with accountability and with integrity.
Cindy will be joined by many others. These are volunteers. These are not necessarily people that will serve in the administration, but they are committed to helping me build the team, the new team that we need in place. They include, as our co-chairs, Doug Baker, the former chair and CEO of Ecolab, who has served on the executive committees of the Greater MSP Partnership and Minnesota Business Partnership; Miguel Pozzo, who has 30 years of experience as a trial attorney, corporate counsel, and compliance professional — he was also head of the National Hispanic Bar Association, and he has served for me on a number of committees, judicial selection committees for federal judges, so I'm well acquainted with his work.
Justin Bowen, right over there, who has been a close adviser to me for years and actually headed up my presidential campaign. Rose Sullivan, who started with me way back when she was just out of Gustavus, was in my office for over 12 years as our health care LA, and then became my legislative director and then my chief of staff in Washington. And I'm very fortunate that she and her husband Tom, who was Lincoln's top adviser, have moved back to Minnesota with their four children. She has those 10 years of experience with me, but she also was the associate director for health programs at the White House Office of Management and Budget and worked directly with then Commissioner Secretary Becerra, who is now the governor of California as of today, and has a lot of health care experience as well.
Lee Sheehy is joining us as well. He chaired Governor Dayton's judicial selection commission and also served as my chief of staff. Sam Clark, he is a senior attorney in the Ramsey County Attorney's Office, and he previously served as my state director and my counsel in the U.S. Senate. Kim Norton, the mayor of Rochester and a former representative, as many of you know her, who served in the Minnesota House for 10 years. Melvin Carter, who served as Saint Paul mayor and city council member, and as director of the Minnesota Office of Early Learning and executive director of the Minnesota Children's Cabinet.
Tony Surdich, a longtime friend, president and CEO of the Northland Foundation currently, and a former Minnesota House majority leader who represented the Iron Range for a decade. Scott Badness, president of the Minnesota Professional Firefighters Association, representing more than 2,000 firefighters, paramedics, and dispatchers across the state. Dan McConnell, president of the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council, representing more than 70,000 skilled construction workers statewide. You all know what a big emphasis I have on infrastructure from my time in the Senate and here, as well as the emphasis that I'm going to put on clearing out red tape to make it easier to build projects.
Mike Kohang, dean of the Morrison Family College of Health at the University of Saint Thomas. Gary Wordish, president of the Minnesota Farmers Union and a member of the National Farmers Union Board of Directors. Together, these leaders from across our state will work with me on a volunteer basis to identify and recruit Minnesotans for my administration. Additional leaders on the transition will be announced in the coming weeks.
There are 61 days before my administration begins. Being governor will be a marathon, but this will be a sprint. Every single day will count. We will need a new team, and we will be filling roles across state government, and we want fresh voices and new ideas to transform our government. And we want ideas from existing employees, once I get there, that I think are very important for those that work in state government about how we can make each agency work better.
People are welcome to express interest on our new transition website. We had to work really hard on it this morning. Our new transition website, which launched today at govklobuchar.com. We are asking people to put their names in if they are interested in these positions. My administration is going to be committed to carrying out this vision to improve the lives of Minnesota. Ben and I are dedicated to uniting Minnesota, to bringing our state together and delivering real results that you can see and feel in your life. And just as I have as your United States senator, I pledge to work every single day, not just for the people who voted for me yesterday, as much as I appreciate that, but for all Minnesotans. Thank you.
So as governor, as I have pledged from the first day when I decided to run for this office, I will launch a top-to-bottom audit of our state government to make sure it is actually delivering. And that is both, let's make clear here, to root out the fraud, yes, but also to figure out at a time of budget constraint how we can make the state government work better. And as I said, we will fix what isn't working or get rid of it, and we will certainly keep what is working.
So how does this work? And great question. I will appoint an independent senior leader to conduct the audit of every agency across state government with a focus on rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. The auditor will work with the new inspector general. That law that was passed, I supported last year, has its own timeline. So I want to make sure that we don't waste any time and we get the audit started right now. Then when the inspector general starts, when that office is brought up, we will then be working with that office. And all I want is not to have more overlapping of authority and more overlapping of work that has to be done. So that clearly is going to have to be coordinated.
The auditor will work with this new inspector general and Minnesota Management and Budget to conduct the audit. So there may be things that my office is working on with government programs and figuring out what works, while at the same time we're rooting out the fraud and doing that piece of it that eventually will be moved over to the inspector general. They will also coordinate with the legislative auditor. I'm well aware that we have three things going here. And use previous findings from audits — let me say that again, previous findings from audits, that's for the legislative auditor to hear as well as everyone else — and make sure that those are implemented, and then again making sure that we work with the legislative auditor to get their ideas and figure out what we can do to make state government better.
I always, looking back to some of the things I saw in the federal government or when I was county attorney, when we would have a, let's say, a horrific murder or something go wrong, we would do something that was like a postmortem in the county where every single agency involved would look at what they did wrong and come to grips with how did this happen? Could we have caught something earlier? We want to be very open to hearing from employees and change the culture so that we know — not just whistleblowers, yes, but it's also how can we fix things and figure it out from the governor's office down. And I'm going to finish. I'm not quite done with this because it's so important.
I'm also going to direct the agencies to create a clear process for reporting fraud, and we will work with whistleblowers as I noted, and I will direct agencies to develop action plans to immediately address findings and recommendations by the legislative auditor. And I also have another commitment on the front of the legislative auditor: that my office will be meeting regularly with the legislative auditor.
Well, first of all, this is going to be very important to me. I will note that while I may have talked to a lot of U.S. senators over the last 48 hours and a lot of incoming U.S. senators, some of whom you saw on TV all last night, the most important calls I had today were with Erin Murphy, the new majority leader; Zach Stevenson, the incoming Speaker of the House — I believe this depends on their caucus votes — but I also spoke with Mark Johnson on the Republican side in the state Senate. I spoke to Harry Niska on the House side, and of course, I spoke to Speaker Dameth last night, and I really appreciated how gracious she was.
This is going to be very important to me to implement the work that I need to get done. And while, yes, there are of course progressives on the Democratic side, there were also a number of moderates that got elected last night like Jim DeMay and Jen Fox, Chris Swanson, Mark Legbold. I think you're going to see, as you do and I see every day in my own caucus in the U.S. Senate, you're going to see people with different views. And the most important thing to me is that people know where I am coming from and the fact that I have been consistent from the beginning, including last night, in front of the entire celebration, which was an ongoing and never-ending celebration for the Democratic Party nationally and the DFL.
I actually said, spoiler alert, you're not going to like everything I do, because I think it's really important for people to understand that we are in agreement on the purpose here. The purpose is to make the government work, and I talked to all four leaders about this, and they are all committed to this: make the government work, the state of Minnesota's government work better, and that means cutting through the red tape. That means rooting out the fraud, and we have agreements on that. We have agreements on improving people's lives. There may be differences here and there on the policies on how to bring down costs, but there is agreement that that should be a purpose of the Minnesota state government. We have agreements that we should be keeping people safe, public safety.
So I am actually quite excited to work with these leaders, and they have, you know, all have vast experience with the state government, and I'm also excited to be working with the new members that are coming in. So you're going to see in me someone that values those relations with the people in the legislature. I'm third in leadership in my own caucus, and also have done a number — I'm not going to go through all the campaign talking points, but I was number one for bipartisan bills, number three for passing bills into law. You don't get to that stage in the U.S. Senate if you don't understand the value of working with people both on the Republican side and in the same caucus that you maybe don't always agree with, and I'm going to put a huge priority on this as we set our priorities going forward, because I believe for our state the stakes couldn't be more high right now.
