Military Appreciation Day Live: Guard and MDVA at the State Fair

Good to be with you, Sergeant Major.

Great to have

you sneak in the back there.

You know, it was kind of like a covert operation.

Right by the spam booth.

Right by the spam booth.

Governor, I only get you for maybe 10 minutes, if that.

I just want to talk about a couple of things.

You've been a great supporter for Minnesota Military Radio coming on at least annually.

You call in on our Memorial Day live show, which is always great.

Let's just kind of go down some memory lane stuff, Governor.

Looking back, obviously in the fall you're going to be leaving office, handing the keys over to somebody else.

I'm just wondering, as we look at the veteran community, the things that you've been able to accomplish through the support of the legislature, of course.

What are the things that you're most proud of as it relates to our Minnesota veterans that you've done over the last eight years?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is this is one issue that unifies Minnesotans, and I know it's probably an understatement to say there's things that it's easy to divide us, but on this one of building that coalition around care for veterans, making sure that one of the things I'm most proud of is before we do any budget in Minnesota, We take care of the veterans issues first.

And every single year we have passed up budget before we talked about anything else.

We did not pit, you know, seniors against veterans.

We did not pit education against veterans.

We pass that ahead.

That's something unique to Minnesota.

And that thing gets unanimous votes.

I think we have been unanimous in those votes.

And because of that, We're a state that has some of the lowest homelessness rates amongst veterans, almost virtually eliminated, and we've opened more veterans' homes than any other state in the nation, and they continuously rank as the best in that.

And add in to our world-class veterans' cemeteries, that care for veterans in Minnesota is nonpartisan, it's nonpolitical, and it has been highly effective.

And I think that's something, I've been at this since two days after I was 17, got to serve as the ranking member in Congress with Jeff Miller, my friend from Florida, and proud of those things we move forward.

Good to be with you, Sergeant Major.

Great to have

you sneak in the back there.

You know, it was kind of like a covert operation.

Right by the spam booth.

Right by the spam booth.

Governor, I only get you for maybe 10 minutes, if that.

I just want to talk about a couple of things.

You've been a great supporter for Minnesota Military Radio coming on at least annually.

You call in on our Memorial Day live show, which is always great.

Let's just kind of go down some memory lane stuff, Governor.

Looking back, obviously in the fall you're going to be leaving office, handing the keys over to somebody else.

I'm just wondering, as we look at the veteran community, the things that you've been able to accomplish through the support of the legislature, of course.

What are the things that you're most proud of as it relates to our Minnesota veterans that you've done over the last eight years?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is this is one issue that unifies Minnesotans, and I know it's probably an understatement to say there's things that it's easy to divide us, but on this one of building that coalition around care for veterans, making sure that one of the things I'm most proud of is before we do any budget in Minnesota, We take care of the veterans issues first.

And every single year we have passed up budget before we talked about anything else.

We did not pit, you know, seniors against veterans.

We did not pit education against veterans.

We pass that ahead.

That's something unique to Minnesota.

And that thing gets unanimous votes.

I think we have been unanimous in those votes.

And because of that, We're a state that has some of the lowest homelessness rates amongst veterans, almost virtually eliminated, and we've opened more veterans' homes than any other state in the nation, and they continuously rank as the best in that.

And add in to our world-class veterans' cemeteries, that care for veterans in Minnesota is nonpartisan, it's nonpolitical, and it has been highly effective.

And I think that's something, I've been at this since two days after I was 17, got to serve as the ranking member in Congress with Jeff Miller, my friend from Florida, and proud of those things we move forward.