Governor Rick Snyder says he’s ready to work with President-elect Donald Trump once he takes office later this month.
Governor Snyder says Trump has not responded to his congratulations messages, but he has heard from the transition team. Snyder and Trump both share the experience of being business people without prior experience running for office.
Snyder says Trump needs to understand that governing is different than campaigning. And, Snyder says the chief executive needs to respect that most government workers know what they’re doing.
“Quite often, a private sector person might have an impression that’s other than that, and you’ve got to be careful and you can learn so much from the people here,” Snyder said. “If you look at our team, we built a great balance of people from the outside. Most of our team are people who had experience, who were Lansing people in terms of being state employees in some fashion.”
Trump has already questioned the findings of the federal intelligence community regarding Russian meddling in the U.S. election.
“These are dedicated people,” Snyder said of Lansing’s public servants. “They made a decision that they want to do public service, and they’re great hard-working folk.”
Snyder says he’s anxious to work with President-elect Trump on infrastructure, and has offered to share the findings of a state infrastructure task force that was convened following the Flint water crisis.