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Gretchen Whitmer: “The average person in this country is one medical, you know…”

Featuring: Gretchen Whitmer, Democratic | Governor of Michigan

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan Talks 8 Years in Office, Gas Prices and Free College Tuition

Published May 18, 2026 | Video Starts at 18:48

Are you from getting a house or enlisting in a credit card or starting a business, like all those things to be held. Your credit report literally dictates so much that you get access to in life. And The average person in this country is one medical, you know, emergency away from total ruin. Yeah. Complete ruin. Losing everything that they have. So it's, we got a lot of work to do in this country. Help people get it. Absolutely. Yeah. (18:48–18:55)

CLAIM

Asserts that a medical emergency can financially devastate the average person.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Gretchen Whitmer

“We went to a fully Democratic controlled legislature, Senate and House for the first time in 40 years.”
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“We're ranked number four in the country for our regional workforce development programs.”
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“When we feed those 1.4 million kids in Michigan breakfast and lunch, it saves parents about 800 bucks a year per student.”
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“When we build a car in Michigan, it goes over that border eight, nine times. We pay a tariff every time.”
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“In Michigan, everything, basically everything has got to be bipartisan.”
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“Now we're back to split. We've got a Republican led House and a Democratic led Senate.”
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“In Michigan you have universal pre K.”
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“I am going to fix the damn roads.”
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“We did. 20,000 took a long time.”
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“A couple thousand bridges.”
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“It's all covered.”
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“We amended our Elliot Larson Civil Rights act to encompass the LGBTQ community.”
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“The business community saw that it was important that we codify [LGBTQ protections].”
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“I didn't really have to make much of a case with the Democrats because we were all ready to do this for a long time.”
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“We are curated and often to be angry at one another, to feel bad about ourselves.”
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“I fight to expand access to healthcare, because I fought my mom's insurance company when they wouldn't pay for her chemotherapy.”
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“There was no place for me to put pump my milk at the state capitol and they wouldn't make space for me.”
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“We're working to make sure that your medical debt can't be used as a lien on your home.”
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“When we did some of this work to eliminate medical debt, the stories are just really incredible.”
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“People would say, fix the damn roads.”
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“The Flint water crisis became known, and the people of this community paid the worst price for a decision that was taken away from them…”
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“We kept abortion legal. We gave the all the volunteers and donors time to collect signatures and go to the ballot. We amended our…”
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“I got to sign the repeal of that law [requiring pre-purchase of abortion coverage].”
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“The single most impactful economic decision a woman will make over the course of her lifetime is whether and when to bear a child.”
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“Enshrining abortion rights in the Constitution is so important.”
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“Whether women have access to healthcare determines whether or not they can participate in the workforce.”
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“My colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle pushed through legislation that made it harder for women to access abortion care.”
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“We enshrined these rights so that my daughters and that every woman and family in Michigan has that protection.”
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“There was the plot to kidnap me and to kill me.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan Talks 8 Years in Office, Gas Prices and Free College Tuition | Uploaded May 18, 2026 | 34:27-34:32
“If I could get rid of Citizens United, if I could take all the dark money out of politics, I think that that would be really helpful for our…”
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“We funded schools at different levels... So we leveled it out and then we built in additional supports for students who are at risk…”
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“We put historic supports in and around our students from mental health to, you know, literacy assistance, et cetera.”
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“Starting last year, the community college guarantee.”
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“When we cut the retirement tax or quintuple, the earned income tax credit, that's thousands of dollars back in working people's pockets.”
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“I have proposed property tax relief in Michigan.”
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“The war is putting a lot of pressure on people, and tariffs are too.”
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“The Biden administration kept [the steel tariffs]. It's been helpful for the American steel industry.”
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“It's a BFD for Michigan. It is almost a billion dollars of economic activity that happens because of that base.”
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“So many elections are decided by slim margins and if 5% more of your generation got activated, you could dictate the outcome of all the…”
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