CNN "State of the Union" - Transcript: Interview With Gov. Pete Ricketts

Interview

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TAPPER: The pandemic is now expanding deeper into the United States. This week, Nebraska reported its first coronavirus deaths.

And the Republican governor of Nebraska, Pete Ricketts, joins me now.

Governor Ricketts, thanks so much for joining us.

President Trump has said he's going to be making a decision on whether to relax social distancing guidelines in certain parts of the country, such as your state that aren't right now hot spots for the disease.

But I have to ask you. While Nebraska does not have the same kind of caseload as other states, you just reported your first two coronavirus deaths. Do you think loosening the restrictions is a good idea right now?

GOV. PETE RICKETTS (R-NE): Well, I think one of the other things the president said is that this is not a one-size-fit-all answer, that states are going to be on their own -- or, rather, the states are going to be able to make their own decisions.

And that's what we're doing here in Nebraska. We have got one of the world-leading experts at University of Nebraska Medical Center in infectious diseases.

Weeks ago, we put together a plan for how we were going to address this. I think the president kicked the entire country off with the 10- person rule that he put in place almost two weeks ago. But we have got a plan. And we're going to continue to work the plan.

It involves breaking our state up regionally by public health districts, and how many cases we have in those districts, and putting our restrictions in place. And we're just going to continue to work that plan.

TAPPER: How many tests have been done in Nebraska? Because, as you know, one of the concerns that we have heard from people such as Dr. Fauci and others is that this disease is likely far more widespread than we know because of the lag in testing, only about 650,000 tests so far in a country of 330 million.

There might be a lot of hot spots out there that we don't even know about. How many -- how many tests in Nebraska? Do you know?

RICKETTS: So, we have done a little over a couple of thousand tests. And I don't think there's any governor who thinks they have enough tests.

But, again, working in conjunction with our experts at UNMC, we put together a plan and a program that assumed we would have limited testing to begin with. And so we're using rules of thumb, like how many people in every region can you find that you can't figure out how they got it? That's a good indication of community spread.

And when we get those cases, that's when we put our most restrictive directed health measures in place.

TAPPER: One of the big concerns, as you know, is rural hospitals.

One of the deaths in your state that we reported was in rural Hall County. Studies show that many rural counties don't have any ICU beds, and that rural areas are more vulnerable to the disease because the residents are older, they possibly have more health problems.

Can the rural health system in Nebraska handle this crisis, assuming it does become a full-blown crisis in Nebraska?

RICKETTS: Well, I think the key there is, first of all, managing it, so that we slow down the spread, right? I mean, that's why we put these restrictions in place.

The second thing is, we are working with our local public health districts to distribute out personal protective equipment to make sure that we have got that distributed to where we need it. So, we're requesting people to let us know what their needs are.

We do the same types of testing in our rural areas that we would do for our urban areas. So, it's the same criteria, the same screener, if you will, to be able to indicate that we got the testing.

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And then, frankly, with regard to these rural hospitals, they already transfer patients today based upon their ability to be able to handle it. So, it's a practice that's already in place, that if a hospital has a case that they don't feel like they can give the proper amount of care to, we make an arrangement to transfer to a different hospital.

TAPPER: After President Trump referred to the criticisms voiced about his administration's handling of the crisis, after he called that a hoax in February, you felt the need to tell your constituents that coronavirus itself was -- quote -- "not a hoax."

Do people in your state think this is a hoax? Why did you feel the need to make that clear?

RICKETTS: Well, I was actually in a press conference, and a reporter said he had received directly a text from somebody saying that this is not serious, this is a hoax.

And so I -- in the middle of the press conference, the reporter asked me that. And I said, no, this is very serious. We have to take it seriously. We have got a plan for how we're going to work it. We need people, though, to pay attention to the plan, so when we ask them to take these measures, these restrictions, like closing down restaurants to dine-in and limiting the size of groups to 10 people, we need people to follow that.

TAPPER: You have said that you have 600 ventilators in your state, but that you're seeking more.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said this week that things in his state are so bad, extra ventilators should be sent from other states to New York, and then, when the disease leaves his state and goes to other parts of the country, then they can be redeployed as needed.

I understand that you have to do the best thing you can for Nebraskans. Does it give you any pause to compete with a state like New York that is facing crisis levels? How have you found the difficulties I have heard from other governors about competitive bidding between states, without one -- one federal government overseer of who gets the supplies?

RICKETTS: So, we are doing an analysis right now of what we are projecting our knees for hospital beds and ICU beds and ventilators. And we're going to be seeking to be able to get that.

And so I have not experienced the issue that some of my colleagues have talked about with regard to the federal government stepping in, maybe, in front of their orders and their orders being delayed or canceled.

But we also are going to be continuing -- looking to buy personal protective equipment and other supplies directly for the state of Nebraska. And, frankly, I think that, again, you can either have it one way or the other. You can either have the federal government do everything, or you can have the states do everything.

I think we're trying to get a process down right now. I would actually prefer that we leave it up to the states to be able to manage this, because I think that's going to be a better outcome.

But you got to -- you can't have it both ways. You can't complain because the federal government is stepping in front of your orders and then have -- and then say, well, the federal government should be doing everything in the first place.

It's -- you have got to kind of pick which model you want to go with.

TAPPER: OK.

Governor Ricketts, best of luck to you. I hope that it does not hit Nebraska as hard as it hits other parts of the country.

Please stay in touch with us, and let us know how we can help.

RICKETTS: Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

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