25-02-2025
Hawaii Gov. Green meets with Trump in D.C.
HONOLULU (KHON2) — The state legislature is in full swing in Hawaii while drastic changes are slated for the federal government in Washington, D.C. with the Trump Administration's cuts to the federal workforce and Governor Josh Green returned from a trip to the nation's capital on Sunday after attending the 2025 Winter Meeting of the National Governors Association, where he and other Governors met with President Donald Trump for over 5 hours.
'The President and his cabinet, it was quite extraordinary,' Gov. Green said. 'It's important for me to go to Washington and see exactly what the landscape is, see what the cuts might look like, and express what I feel Hawaii needs to the president directly for he's making his large moves on DEI. What I explained was to allow us to have ROI, you know, return on investment. And he was very favorable, and his cabinet were very favorable to that opinion because we governors need to sustain Medicaid and sustain our workforce. So much of it was extremely productive. We differ on a lot of things, but I'm gonna try to find a path to help Hawaii.'
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Gov. Green said Hawaii is 5,000 workers short at the state level and is offering job opportunities for people who have or will be laid off from the federal workforce by the purging of federal employees by Elon Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency.
'What is happening at the federal level where the cuts from Mr. Musk are very steep and precipitous, that is hurting people,' Gov. Green said. 'And I did express that I don't support that. But if there are people who separate from the Department of the Interior, maybe they can work in our, division of land and natural resources.'
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One of the president's financial plans is tariffs, specifically steel. The Green administration's focus is affordable housing, and they have the new Aloha Stadium Entertainment District project.
'So I think a lot of it is a bargaining strategy. I did learn an incredible amount about the president and his team, during my four days in DC. So that's the strategy,' Gov. Green said. 'I would like to make sure that our allies, people we work with, especially Japan and Canada in this case, can bring us, low-cost fuel and low-cost materials because we do have a housing crisis.'
Green had traveled to D.C. already this month to lobby against now-confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. A recent measles outbreak in West Texas has hospitalized 16 people out of about 100 cases, with the Associated Press reporting that the outbreak concentrates in a low-vaccination Mennonite community.
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'I'm concerned,' said Gov. Green, who has treated Measles outbreaks as a licensed physician. 'As everyone knows, I spoke out, pretty strongly against RFK Jr. We're seeing the manifestation of his misinformation campaign over the last five years really hit home, in this case, in Texas. People don't believe in vaccinations. More people ask for exemptions for whatever reason, and then you see these outbreaks. Three out of five hundred people, mostly kids, who get measles are gonna die. It will be tragic. And many more will have encephalopathy, which is damage to the the cerebral brain tissue, which means they could have blindness or, paralysis. So I'm passionate about this. I shared with the president that I'm gonna try to work with him whenever I possibly can, but I draw the line in the sand on this.'
Some of the vaccine hesitancy has grown from COVID-19 shots to standard school vaccinations in Hawaii. Incomplete vaccinations for Hawaii's Department of Education mandated vaccines have doubled since 2022, and religious exemptions have grown from 2.55% in 2021-2022, 3.07% in 2022-2023, and 4.07% in 2024-2025. The state legislature is now working on a bill to remove religious exemptions.
Governor Green says he's looking to find a middle ground with the director of the state Department of Health that can include religious exemptions but not conspiracies, like the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism.
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'I wanna tell everybody, I actually believe in religious exemptions as long as they are, legitimate exemptions that people believe deep in their heart. What happens though is a lot of people use excuses, because they just don't want vaccinations. What I'm trying to do is broker a piece on the bill so that there can be an area where people get the exemptions, but the public schools have to be protected. Otherwise, we, like in Texas, will see those outbreaks.'
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