Raimondo Spoke to Harvard Students About Her Success in Rhode Island

Raimondo Spoke to Harvard Students About Her Success in Rhode Island

Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo was featured at a forum at Harvard University this past week.

She had a lot to say about President Donald Trump, and how his tariff plan "isn't working" and much more, during her roughly 40-minute appearance before students at the Ivy League institution.

Raimondo spent a good amount of time at the forum entitled “The Future of U.S. Competitiveness” talking about her own political background and what she said were her successes in Rhode Island.

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Calling herself a "disruptor” for her Rhode Island pension reform to someone “in public service for the sake of public service,” Raimondo, who in recent years has been deemed in circles as a rising Democratic Party star, made the case for what she perceives as her political assets.

Among her comments at the Harvard forum, Raimondo boasted the "first phone call" she received when elected Governor of Rhode Island was from former President Bill Clinton.

 

Disruptor-in-Chief

Forum moderator Jeffery Liebman, the Director of the Harvard Taubman Center for State and Local Government, posed the following question to Raimondo. 

‘I’ve seen you in many contexts to be someone who’s willing to basically break eggs and not accept how government is functioning…and I’m curious whether given that, do you see Elon Musk as a kindred spirit, and this DOGE effort, as you know, someone who’s willing to break things to fix them?” he asked.

Raimondo said she did not.

“I don't know. How do you react to what's going on right now? Well I don't know if he's interested to break things to fix them…so much as he might be interested to break things so that his companies can then sell products to the government to fix them or just break things to break them because you hate government and don't care so much about the people that you're serving,” said Raimondo.

“Having said all of that I also don't think we should defend things the way they're working just because it's the way it's been done and I've been a bit of a disruptor my whole time in government,” Raimondo went on to add. “You know when I was first State Treasurer I inherited what I thought was a broken dysfunctional pension system.”

"And I fixed it and it was super hard…all constituencies in my party and the entire legislature in Rhode Island, which was mostly Democrats, told me to leave it alone, that politics are too tough. leave it alone,” said Raimondo. “But I couldn't...I just couldn't sleep at night.’

“I was like, 'This is not going to work. My kid's first-grade teacher who's a public school teacher who's 35 years old is not going to have a pension in 35 years when she needs it.’ So I took it on and I fixed it,” said Raimondo.

“I saw tons of waste, bureaucracy, unnecessary regulation when I was Governor. Let's not pretend it doesn't exist,” said Raimondo. “Let's get rid of it.”

“So listen. I think that we need to streamline government, clear out the underbrush of regulation, innovate and deliver services differently. I mean the way kids go to school, the way most people interact with government…it is pretty much the same as it was 50 years ago,” said Raimondo. “We've got to fix that; we’ve got to modernize that. We can be better faster. and more efficient."

“And so that is what I believe in. However execution matters," she added. “And you can't hurt people in the process, and breaking things for breaking the thing's sake, I think is no good.”
 

 

Citing Her Own Leadership

“When I became Governor and [U.S] Secretary, I called so many people. You know, I’d meet people, and they say, ‘I’d be happy to help; give me a call.’ They don't actually think I'm going to call. I called everyone back [and] I'm like, ‘You offered, by the way, how could you do this could you do that?' And you know my view was I needed all the help I could get," said Raimondo. 

Raimondo then name-dropped Bill Clinton.

“Um, it’s hard to make change in government because the system is designed to go slow,” said Raimondo. “So you really have to be unbelievably ambitious.”

“When I first became Governor, Bill Clinton was the first guy to call me to congratulate me, [and he] gave me a ton of good advice,” said Raimondo. “He said in government if you get 30% done of what you want to achieve you're a success.”

“Now, like a lot of you, I was used to getting A's. I wasn't used to getting 30% on a test,” said Raimondo. “So I thought, come on, I can do better than 30%. He's not wrong. And so what you’ve got to do, is you've got to aim really high, really fast; push your team and if you can get half done of what you think you're going to get done, it's a win."

“Look, I think the reality is I'd like to think that the reason I get great people to work for me is because they trust me, because they know I'm not in it for me, I’m in it for the work,” said Raimondo.

 

 

Recruiting Talent

“When I was Secretary, I had to recruit a team of people to implement the Chips Act. I recruited 150 people. I recruited like pretty amazing people. I got people to sell all their Nvidia stock, so come work for me,” said Raimondo.

“A guy who left Goldman, he ran investment banking and tech. I said you have to sell all your stocks to come into the government. Here's my pitch. I showed up in their office [and said] I need you to come work for me. You work seven days a week; I can't pay you; you have to sell all your stock, but it's good for America. And I'm not leaving your office till you say yes.”

“I think at the end of the day, you’ve just got to be a principled leader. Why are you in this? Are you in it for you? Are you in it to get reelected, or are you in it to serve?” said Raimondo, who she was “in it to serve” and got “good people” to work for her. 

 

“Growing Up Italian”

Raimondo, Rhode Island's first woman elected governor, was first elected in 2014.

She won relection in 2018 and left in the middle of her second term to serve in former President Joe Biden’s cabinet.

Throughout her career, she has often told her story about growing up.

“When I was an undergrad [at Harvard], I had no idea what I wanted to do after college. So if you find yourself in that spot, don’t sweat it, it will all work out. You might take a few different tries at some things and that’s OK,” said Raimondo, who then delved into her childhood.

“You know, my dinner table was loud, crowded, with awesome food like any self-respecting Italian family,” she said. “We had seven people, three bedrooms, one bathroom - but two kitchens.”

“It was not political, except in my case, when Ronald Reagan was elected," said Raimondo. "My parents were quite anti-Reagan, because my dad was constantly saying, 'What about the little guy who gets up in the morning and goes to work?' My family, they worked."

"We were never poor, we got by, and so it’s interesting, you see this today, you know, they were qualified for what they would call a handout, and so they weren’t hugely for that,” said Raimondo.

“And another thing, I grew up with the value of work. I think as I got older, and I saw some of the American dream being out of grasp for a lot of people..it motivated me to get into politics to level the playing field,” said Raimondo.