Virginia governor-elect on government shutdown, healthcare costs and more

(CBS, KYMA) - Gov.-Elect Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the effects of the government shutdown on federal workers.

Gov.-Elect Spanberger defeated Republican candidate Winsome Earle-Sears in Tuesday's election, becoming the Virginia's first female governor.

According to Brennan, Virginia holds the highest number of federal workers in the country, and many of them are not getting paid.

Brennan also said some people in the Democratic Party view Spanberger's victory, as well as Mikie Sherrill's victory as governor of New Jersey, as "permission to hold the line in Congress and refuse to fund the government or fold on the shutdown"

This prompted her to ask the governor-elect if congressional Democrats view her victory that way, and Spanberger said:

"Absolutely not. Our victory was a victory that was based on a campaign that was addressing concerns related to costs and chaos. My campaign across the past two years have been focused on hearing the challenges that people are facing all across Virginia. It's rising costs in health care, housing, energy, and it's the chaos coming out of Washington that has been impacting Virginians so severely, beginning with the DOGE efforts, of course, continuing with chaotic trade policies, and now in this government shutdown. Virginians need to and Virginians want to see the government reopen, and my expectation is that we will see a congress, a Senate, and ultimately a president, driving us in that direction."

Brennan followed up by asking Spanberger if congressional Democrats should reopen the government and then talk about healthcare, and Spanberger said:

"The government needs to open and it needs to open immediately. We need the president to demonstrate leadership, bringing people together, endeavoring to get through whatever negotiations need to get through, whether it's before or after. My priority is the, is focusing on the needs and the, the devastation, frankly, that more than 300,000 Virginians are facing. And that's just the federal employees, government contractors, they will never get made whole. The entirety of Virginia's economy is impacted by the shutdown, just as we've been impacted by DOGE attacks, and the government needs to reopen quickly."

During the interview, Brennan and Spanberger talked about artificial intelligence (AI) leading to rising energy costs in Virginia.

According to Brennan, Virginia has the world's largest concentration of AI data center, causing power bills in the state to rise to nearly 7%.

When asked if this is driven by the AI boom, and how she will offset the rising energy costs, Spanberger said:

"What we've seen in the research so far is that it is not the increased costs are not driven by the increase in data centers. There's some bad energy policies in some of our neighboring states that have driven up prices, particularly in southwest Virginia. But looking towards the future, we have to be clear eyed about the fact that we will have an energy crisis headed into the future. And so here on the ground in Virginia, we currently have a rate case where it will be important that large scale energy users, particularly data centers, that the public, know that they are paying their fair share for the energy that they are using. And we have to increase our energy production here at home so that we can meet the demand, certainly of larger scale energy users, but, but also of increased demand from, from our communities. And it is a real challenge that we have to get ahead of. And that's why among the first affordability plans that I laid out was one focused on energy. It's a challenge that is pervasive across our communities and particularly acute in southwest Virginia."

Later in the interview, Brennan and Spanberger talked about Cornell's recent funding deal with the Trump Administration.

This led Brennan to ask Spanberger, in her new role, if she's going to play ball with the Department of Education and Justice Department in order to keep federal government funding going after the University of Virginia, according to Brennan, cut deals with the government, leading to the president of the school to be kicked out, which Spanberger called it an extortion.

"So it should shock everyone that universities, public and private, are receiving demands from the federal government and that dollars, research dollars, are being withheld, that our universities are under attack. And certainly what we've seen in the case the University of Virginia, a popular, experienced, excellent president was pushed out, and on the ground here, we did not see our governor in any way step up in defense of our university. And the idea that the federal government would be withholding federal dollars, including dollars already appropriated by Congress for research, in order to compel universities to take certain actions, it is absolute federal government overreach, and as governor, I will be clear eyed about ensuring that we have structures in place, including boards of visitors across our universities that want to defend academic freedom and frankly, the viability and vitality of extraordinary institutions like the University of Virginia."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Spanberger, click here.